The Brooklyniest Drink Ever?

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The phrase “chocolate whiskey” probably doesn’t bring to mind anything remotely cutting edge. I know I imagine some kind of milky, sickly sweet concoction that is easier to drink than a glass of Yoo-hoo, but causes endless regret as soon as it hits your stomach. But how about a “chocolate whiskey” that tastes like booze, with just a hint of cocoa? That sounds more like it.

Kings County Distillery recently released a limited-edition chocolate “flavored” whiskey collaboration with fellow Brooklynites Mast Brothers Chocolate. The idea came about when the Kings County folks, exploring the idea of expanding to a larger production facility, paid a research visit to Mast Brothers’ new factory in Williamsburg. KCD co-owner Colin Spoelman was intrigued by the abundance of chocolate husks–the small, outer layer of cocoa pods that are a byproduct of chocolate making. Mast Brothers usually gives them away to be used as mulch, but Spoelman left with a barrel and went about infusing it into their existing moonshine product.

The result is a spirit that is still predominantly whiskey (and 40% ABV), but is infused with just the bitter, cocoa-y notes of chocolate, with none of the sugary sweetness. It’s kind of like pairing a bite of dark-dark chocolate with your drink. I never thought there would be a chocolate-flavored whiskey that whiskey lovers like myself would enjoy, but this is the one.

While likely a one-time-only product, the chocolate whiskey is currently available at Thirst Wine Merchants in Fort Greene, The Whiskey Shop in Williamsburg, and several other locations around the borough. As for Kings County Distillery, they’ve settled on a new location in the Navy Yard, where they plan to open a larger production facility April 1, with public tours and tastings coming later this year.


8 Responses

  1. SwampYankee -

    Mast Brothers are from Iowa…..Iowa, not Brooklyn.  How can this be the ”
    ” Brooklyniest” drink ever if the people supplying 1/2 the ingredients are from Iowa?

    Reply
  2. SwampYankee -

    Oh, and the co-founder of the Kings County Distillery, 
    Colin Spoelman, is from Eastern Kentucky.  He fancied himself a screen writer for a while but that didn’t work out.  So we have guys from Easter Kentucky and Iowa making the “Brookllyniset” drink ever?  I don’t think so.  Didn’t schaffer beer have a brewery here?  Egg Creams?  anything else come to mind except these 2 transplants pretending to be from Brooklyn?  Brooklyn based perhaps, from Brooklyn, no, from Iowa and Eastern Kentucky, yeah.

    Reply
  3. Nin ji -

    This is some bullshit.  I’m not from anywhere near Brooklyn and I find this offensive (but then, I find hipsters and anything having to do with them, to be offensive).   

    Reply
  4. Nin ji -

    This is some bullshit.  I’m not from anywhere near Brooklyn and I find this offensive (but then, I find hipsters and anything having to do with them, to be offensive).   

    Reply
  5. SwampYankee -

    Hey Colin,  I know you are reading this.  Doesn’t it just kill you that you went to film school, wanted to be a writer, wrote screenplays about Harlan, Kentucky, and someone else is getting rich and famous writing screenplays and stories and TV shows based in Harlan Kentucky.  I do love me some “Justified”.  Why do you transplants continue to come to Brooklyn?

    Reply
  6. Nin ji -

    I peeped the King’s County Distillery website. It says “New York City’s Oldest Whiskey Distillery”.  If the reader is an out-of-towner like myself, then he or she will get the (false) impression that KCD is a business  that’s somewhat of a local (to the area) institution and has ties to the (native) local community. 

    When I see something referred to as the “oldest”, I’m thinking of something that’s been around AT LEAST two decades or more.  KCD was founded in 2009.   Oldest? LOL!   If the distillery was founded shortly after WWII, then the claim of “oldest” would have some authenticity (something you hipsters lack in the extreme).

    There’s quite a difference between the claim of being “New York City’s Oldest Whiskey Distillery” and the FACT that it’s “NYC’s first distillery within the city limits since the prohibition era, which was founded in 2009”. 

    Disingenuous, lying, hipster bastards.  If some hipster in Minneapolis is made to forcefully french-kiss a brick wall (or the steel-toe of my boot)  because he pissed me off, just remember that the blood of your fellow hipster is on your hands.  

    Hipsters —–> Woodchipper

    Reply
  7. Fred The Kat -

    And this: ” It’s kind of like pairing a bite of dark-dark chocolate with your drink.” Who eats chocolate while they’re drinking whisky?

    Reply
  8. Nin ji -

    There’s something else about this article I forgot to address . . . I always to thought that in order to qualify as a “Brooklynite”,  one must be either born or at least raised in Brooklyn.  So how do the “Mast Bros” qualify as “Brooklynites” when they were born and raised in some place other than Brooklyn (most likely in fly-over country)?   That makes no sense.  Typical hipster posers.

    Reply

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