It’s a New Year, and we’re percolating with graciousness for a busy and productive 2025 and buzzing with excitement for a year to come full of new whiskeys, new communities, and new experiences.
Celebrating 15 Years of Kings County Distillery
Milestones
We turned 15 in 2025, something hard to imagine when we started in a 275-square foot room in East Williamsburg back in 2010. In a year of challenges for craft spirits, which was felt especially hard by our New York peers. This has never been an easy industry and the odds have always been against us, but we’ve finally reached a moment where our own aged whiskey is comparable to most American whiskeys, indeed fulfilling a promise that we and other craft spirits producers across the country have been whispering for years. And though we will turn 16, there’s an even bigger milestone coming very soon. More on that a little later.
Our best, as defined by you
Portfolio Highlights
Nothing illustrates that maturity more than our new 90 proof Straight Empire Rye Whiskey, the first flagship, always-available rye from Kings County, a project that took 10 years to gestate and execute. Rye whiskey is the history of distilling in the Northeast, and there are no remaining distilleries that distilled prior to the year 2000 that continue to make rye. It’s on us, the new traditionalists, to bring it back to our region and we think we’ve created the definitive New York Rye Whiskey, an Empire Rye which nods both to past and future.
We also saw our blended bourbon outsell straight bourbon in our home state, and coffee whiskey became our top bar and restaurant spirit, as it elevates so many cocktails. We saw interest at both ends of our portfolio: the entry level and mixable spirits as well as allocated and distillery exclusives.
Barrel Strength Empire Rye
Limited Releases
Within limited releases, we launched batch #19 and #20 of Barrel Strength Bourbon, and another edition of our Best-of-Category Double Gold Barrel Strength Empire Rye. We saw the release of 3 black label whiskeys, a lightly peated single barrel, a 9 year Bottled-in-Bond, and our first 10 Year Hazmat Barrel Strength Single Barrel Bourbon Whiskey. We also released our Irish Homage American Whiskey and our first American Single Malt.
If there was a theme to this year’s efforts, it was community. We exist in a lot of different communities, whiskey lovers perhaps first and foremost, but that includes a lot of types of fans, connoisseurs, and friends. We’re also a part of our Brooklyn Navy Yard Community, where manufacturing is a way of building culture and careers for our neighbors. We are a part of New York City hospitality and beyond with incredible supporters in the best bars, restaurants around the country (and even some internationally). And on a more personal level, our staff, our friends and families and everyone who helps believe in our project, we’re especially grateful for your support and proud to have it.
And because it’s easy to talk about community, but harder to prove you really mean it, we really encourage you to reach out with ideas, suggestions, criticisms. We love hearing from you and as whiskey lovers ourselves first and foremost, we want to be sure that we are making the whiskeys you want to see, sip, and share.
And now for the year to come…
What to expect in 2026
2026 Predictions
It’s becoming clear that the pandemic is long over but the so-called return to normal is just different in ways that affect hospitality. People go out and socialize in novel ways. There was a “vibe shift” after all, but it was less about the aesthetic side of culture and more about the social. Political shifts have affected doing business on both sides of the spectrum from tariffs to the surgeon general. Also, as I’ve written about, zealotry and temperance go hand-in-hand throughout history and performative wellness on social media continues to affect culture. On top of it all, everything costs more.
Some ideas for what we might see from our perspective on the whiskey business, craft distilling, and the booze industry from our perch in New York.
High and Low
We’ve seen some interest in our higher priced bottles and increased interest (especially locally) in our entry level whiskeys. I think you can expect the same thing of the broader landscape, more diversity of pricing, more diversity of popularity. There’s no one perfect whiskey in the world, but a variety for all. People like to invest in the notion of a perfect whiskey, superlative in every measure, strip away the cost, age, and rarity and I think we’d all have a very different approach to excellence.
Rye Whiskey
Rye may finally get its due. As interest in traditional bourbon peaks, it opens the door for the whiskeys waiting in the wings, especially rye and American single malts. These have been lurking on the sidelines, but expect this year to see more interest in rye, especially rye from its historical home in the northeast (and New York). People have been predicting the return of rye for a while, but this year could see an acceleration in a slowly building trend.
Socialization
We do think younger people especially will discover the joys of going out and older folks may rediscover in-person socialization. New York has always been a city for going out, and we’ve already seen this happen, something that has taken longer in other places. We think tourism will be up and people will venture into the city for more tastings over less considered forms of imbibing.
Industry
Speaking of less considered, the last couple of years have been tough on the booze biz and a lot of it comes from the middle tier, which represents the distributors appointed in the various states to mediate between distillers and their customer. That is a fairly onerous business, even when it works well and everyone is synchronized. The last two years have shown how precarious that bit is, so look for some back end improvements in the industry at large to create new opportunities.
Themes
The theme of the past year was community, and we have a lot of constituent communities—not just whiskey lovers, but history buffs, Navy Yard neighbors, design professionals, small business supporters, bartenders and restauranteurs, our peers in craft manufacturing…our list could go on a while.
After community comes organization, and we’re looking for ways to find more connection in our communities. We have some ideas up our sleeve but if there is a collective refocusing on being out in the world, we want to provide a place and an architecture for those communities to build and thrive. We’ve seen some great enthusiasm around our Must-See NYC Week, our annual Yard Sale, our special releases, our Open House New York days. But we want to make more of these in the year to come.
After organization comes revolution. We think the spirits industry is due for one. Who knows how far out that horizon is, but we hope to be a part of it. In the meantime, we’re just happy to continue to make old style whiskeys for new audiences, and we’ll keep doing it as long as you let us. Thank you for your support and we continue to be humbled by your enthusiasm and your notes of encouragement. See you in the New Year.
