Kings County Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Situated along the banks of the East River, Kings County Distillery is New York Citys 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 afix 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 dont understand why it doesnt make the pigs drunk," Haskell says. Kings County Straight Bourbon is made from 80 percent New York organic corn and 20 percent English barley and is twice distilled on Scottish copper pot stills and 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 gold medal from the SF World Sprits Competition in 2017. Kings County currently produces about 150 gallons of bourbon a month. "We make enough to supply some of Brooklyn, some of Manhattan and thats 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!