Brooklyn was once home to many distilleries, but these days there are just a few operating in this New York City borough making gin, vodka, and whiskey of all sorts. One of the best known—and the oldest to date in the modern era—is Kings County, which just added a new whiskey called Empire Rye to its core portfolio. We got to sample this new release, and it’s a good one.
Kings County was founded in 2010 by Kentucky native Colin Spoelman, who is also the distiller, and David Haskell, who is now the editor-in-chief of New York Magazine. The distillery, located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard along the East River, makes bourbon, rye, and American single malt, along with a peated bourbon and coffee whiskey. The Empire Rye category was established in 2017–the rules are that the whiskey must be made from at least 75 percent grains grown in New York and distilled in the state, and meets the qualifications of straight rye whiskey (51 percent rye, at least two years old). Kings County has released Empire Rye before in limited numbers and at barrel-strength, but according to the distillery there is finally enough inventory to add this new 90-proof expression to the core portfolio.
The new Empire Rye was made from a mashbill of 80 percent Danko rye grown in Ancramdale, New York, and 20 percent English malted barley. It was distilled twice and aged in new charred oak barrels for at least three years. According to Spoelman, rye whiskey is historically important to the Northeast, particularly New York, and this new release is the culmination of ten years of work. “Almost 70 percent of rye comes from a single distillery in Indiana [MGP], and is bottled under a number of different names,” he said in a statement. “A handful of craft distillers have come together to reintroduce rye production in Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland, where rye originated and was long the dominant spirit until bourbon began to take over in the late 1800s. Rye almost died out in the 1990s but has seen an important renaissance due to craft distillers and the resurgence of historical cocktails.”
There is no corn in the mashbill, like the 95 percent rye/5 percent malted barley ryes Spoelman mentions that are produced at MGP, but this is a very different whiskey because of the mashbill and the fact that it’s aged in barrels ranging from smaller casks to the usual 53-gallons. The palate is rich with fruit and spice, along notes of chocolate, pear, red apple, nutmeg, pepper, and oak. It’s an intriguing sipper, and certainly something to consider using to make a Manhattan or Old Fashioned The first bottles are on sale today at the distillery and online (SRP $69), and they will be available around New York State and other distribution networks later this month. You can find other expressions in the lineup available to purchase at websites like Total Wine now.
Authors
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Jonah Flicker