By Martinne Geller
LONDON, June 14 (Reuters) - French spirits maker Marie Brizard is teaming up with Sazerac to sell the U.S. company's American drink brands Fireball and Southern Comfort in France and other European countries, sources told Reuters.
Fireball, a cinnamon-flavoured whiskey, has been one of the fastest-growing brands in the United States in recent years, helping pioneer the huge popularity of flavoured whiskies.
Sazerac just acquired Southern Comfort, a whiskey-flavoured liqueur, from Brown-Forman earlier this year.
Sazerac's global sales director, Guy May, said he was "very, very pleased" about the deal that will see Marie Brizard sell the two brands in France, Poland and Bulgaria, beginning later this year.
Marie Brizard, whose own brands include William Peel Scotch and Sobieski vodka, declined to comment.
Fireball's sales rose 16 percent last year, according to sales tracker Impact Databank, though that is a deceleration from the year before. The brand currently sells 4.6 million cases, up from just 800,000 in 2012, according to Impact.
Fireball is already sold in more than two dozen countries with various distributors on behalf of privately held Sazerac, which also makes Buffalo Trace bourbon.
Marie Brizard, which used to be called Belvedere, has just finished a restructuring overseen by a French court after it took on too much debt to fund acquisitions. The company last month secured a 62.5 million euro ($70.33 million) credit facility that it plans to use to help its growth plans.
($1 = 0.8887 euros) (Reporting by Martinne Geller, editing by Louise Heavens)