Kings County Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Situated along the banks of the East River, Kings County Distillery is New York City's oldest operating whiskey distillery and the first distillery in New York City since Prohibition. Wedged between Williamsburg and Vinegar Hill, Colin Spoelman and David Haskell, the master distillers at Kings County, make hand-crafted bourbon and moonshine out of the 113-year old Paymaster Building at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

A typewriter the two distillers found on the sidewalk in Williamsburg is used to make the labels that adorn their clear, flask-like bottles, while a hairdryer (made by Revlon) is used to affix each bottle seal. Handwritten scrawls on a chalkboard keep track of different batches, and mesh laundry bags are used as strainers.

Haskell and Spoelman use the first alcohol produced from each batch — the "head" — as a disinfectant and sell the used mash to a pig farmer who uses it as feed. "I still don't understand why it doesn't make the pigs drunk," Haskell says.

Kings County Bourbon is made from a mash bill of New York State-grown corn and malted English barley. Twice distilled on Scottish copper pot stills it's then aged for at least two years in new oak barrels. Smooth, spicy, and complex, this bourbon is a precocious whiskey, surprisingly robust for its age with notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper, and vanilla. Awarded three stars by the New York Times, and a double gold medal from the SF World Spirits Competition in 2019.

Kings County currently produces about 150 gallons of bourbon a month. "We make enough to supply some of Brooklyn, some of Manhattan and that's about it," Spoelman says. After visiting their distillery, we bamboozled them into sharing some of their juice with the rest of the country. The bottles are filled, labeled and sealed by hand.

Pick up a bottle of Kings County bourbon today!