Distilled Spirits Council of the United States

The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) is a national trade association representing producers and marketers of distilled spirits sold in the United States. DISCUS was formed in 1973 by the merger of three organizations (the Bourbon Institute, the Distilled Spirits Institute, and the Licensed Beverage Industries, Inc.) that had been in existence for decades.

Members of DISCUS represent approximately 70 percent of all distilled spirits brands sold in the United States. Members are: Bacardi USA, Beam Inc., Brown-Forman Corporation, Campari America, Constellation Brands, Diageo, Florida Caribbean Distillers, Luxco, Moet Hennessy USA, Patrón Spirits Company, Pernod Ricard USA, Remy Cointreau USA, Sidney Frank Importing Company, and Suntory USA. In addition to full membership, DISCUS offers a Craft Distiller Affiliate Member program with 63 members as of March 2013.

In May 2016 the council said it has dropped its DISCUS acronym and will use "Distilled Spirits Council" for the short form of its name, in order to "modernise the association's public presence".

The Council developed a set of voluntary guidelines that they suggest for the spirits industry and council members to follow. The code provides for a review board that reviews complaints about advertising and marketing materials in the marketplace. In 2003, DISCUS began issuing semiannual public reports describing the review board complaints and decisions. As of March 2013, DISCUS has also posted some "pre-publication" results on its web site to show preliminary drafts of the content of its reports prior to publication of a final semi-annual code-of-conduct action report. (As of October 2016, the most recent semi-annual report on the DISCUS web site was for a period that ended more than six years earlier.)

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