Kings County Distillery was founded in 2010 by Colin Spoelman and David Haskell and is the oldest operating whiskey distillery in New York City — a title that sounds small until you realise how much of American whiskey history was erased by Prohibition. The distillery occupies the Paymaster Building in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a handsome red-brick structure built in 1899, and has become one of the defining names of the modern American craft whiskey revival.
The flagship bourbon is made from a two-grain mash bill — 70% New York organic corn and 30% English malted barley — which is unusual for bourbon, where rye or wheat typically plays the flavouring grain. The barley-heavy recipe owes something to Scotch-whisky thinking and gives the whiskey a softer, maltier voice than a traditional Kentucky bourbon.
Spoelman grew up in Harlan County, Kentucky, and the distillery's origin story is partly a Kentucky boy's attempt to make Kentucky-style whiskey in Brooklyn. Early batches were aged in small barrels, following the craft playbook, but the distillery has since moved toward larger cooperage as stocks have matured. The result is a bourbon that feels both urban and agricultural — New York corn, English malt, Brooklyn brick, Kentucky soul.
In the glass, it is gentle and bright, not the pepper-and-proof version of craft bourbon you might expect. The malt shows, the corn sings, and the oak stays polite. It tastes like a distillery that has stopped trying to prove anything and is now just making its whiskey, carefully, in a brick building by the East River.
Brooklyn's quiet, confident bourbon classic.
