Get ready for the great Brooklyn booze-up

You knew we had some breweries, maybe you knew we had a winery, and now it looks like Brooklyn will have the holy trinity of booziness: hard liquor distilleries. Say it with me now: “Brooklyn Whiskey.” It just sounds right, doesn’t it?

The Daily News reports today on three distilleries planning to open this spring—the first of their kind in Brooklyn since Prohibition, according to the Daily News. The first of the featured new booze factories is Breuckelen Distilling on 19th Street in Sunset Park, opened by Brad Estabrooke, who quit a fancy sounding financial services career in favor of making gin for locavores (huzzah!).

Then there’s New York Distilling Co. in Williamsburg, started by Brooklyn Brewery co-founder Tom Potter. Potter tells the News that alcohol production has historically been good for the local economy. And we can confirm that, historically, drinking hard alcohol is certainly good for our economy (that of the eternally downtrodden struggling writer).

Finally, Kings County Distillery, to be opened by Colin Spoelman and David Haskell in East Williamsburg, sounds like a glorious adult Willy Wonka house from which rivers of whiskey will pour forth (and moonshine and bourbon too). “We’re not going for a hard sell,” Haskell told the News. “We think enough people will be interested that we won’t have to push it.” (Are you sure, David? Because prison wine is oh-so-easy to make!

Some of the distilleries will have tours and tastings too, meaning you could soon do a three-pronged Brooklyn alcohol tour. But remember that old wives’ tale: distillery before winery, you’ll puke on your finery…

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