Every time a spirits company buys another spirits company or brand, industry insiders, brand managers and the occasional distiller starts asking the same questions: Who’s next? And for how much?

The latest was Angel’s Envy, the Kentucky brand that was recently sold to Bacardi for an undisclosed amount.

Last year, the big purchases were Suntory’s $16-billion Beam acquisition and Campari’s $185.6-million purchase of Canadian distillery Forty Creek. These purchases led to Wall Street analysts opining about Brown-Forman being the next major parent company to be sold. Brown-Forman says these are false rumors.

In the past year, I’ve listened to people give convincing arguments as to why Maker’s Mark will be sold, how Heaven Hill is truly the next great buy in spirits, and why Diageo wants to buy an American distillery soon.

These rumors surface all the time. Whether they make the notepad depends on the source. The aforementioned rumors didn’t make the notebook, by the way, but I used them as examples of the chatter on the street.

Well, more than one highly respectable source has told me that the Angel’s Envy purchase sent other potential buyers looking for a distillery. Three brands surfaced as being on their radar—Copper & Kings, the new brandy distillery in Louisville; Few Spirits in Evanston, Illinois; and an unnamed Colorado distillery.

When I posed the buyout rumor to Copper & Kings, founder Joe Heron said that’s “bullshit.” Heron later Tweeted: “we’re more interested in selling cases than the Company.”

Few Spirits founder Paul Hletko told me in a written statement: “we are always interested in opportunities to improve our products and operations to better pursue our goal of producing the worlds finest whiskey and gin.  Each day we strive to improve in at least one way. We have no comment on any rumors that we are about to be sold, other than it is an honor to be thought of as desirable.”

In a recent interview with former Brown-Forman president Steve Thompson, who founded the Kentucky Artisans Distillery, Thompson told me that new money contacts him daily about investing or wanting to start a new brand or distillery.

These rumors are the sign of the times. Everybody wants in the distilling business.