Colin Spoelman grew up in eastern Kentucky coal and moonshine country, studied architecture at Yale, and ended up founding New York City's first legal whiskey distillery since Prohibition. His path from smuggling mason jars of bootleg corn liquor to Brooklyn dinner parties to selling his one-millionth bottle is one of the best origin stories in American spirits.
This profile is compiled from published interviews and public sources, including London Spirits Competition, ForceBrands, 6sqft, Alcohol Professor, and Drinking Vessels.
The Moonshine Bootlegger
Spoelman grew up in eastern Kentucky — not bourbon country, but moonshine and coal mining country. After Yale and a stint in architecture in New York, he started traveling back to Kentucky and bringing moonshine to share at Brooklyn dinner parties. "I first got interested in distilling by traveling back to Kentucky and bringing moonshine with me to share with friends in New York," he's recalled. People were fascinated — raw, unaged corn whiskey in a mason jar felt transgressive and real.
When New York passed a farm distillery bill in 2009 that dropped annual licensing fees from $13,000 to $198, Spoelman and co-founder David Haskell — a magazine editor — saw their opening. "My approach was I'll just do it. And I'll figure it out," Spoelman told Alcohol Professor.
325 Square Feet in Williamsburg
Kings County Distillery launched in 2010 in a 325-square-foot room in East Williamsburg with five 24-liter stills — literally the smallest commercial distillery in the country. In 2012, they relocated to the 115-year-old Paymaster Building in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, near the legendary site of the Brooklyn Whiskey Wars of the 1860s, where federal troops destroyed illegal stills in the neighborhood.
Here's the history most people miss: according to Spoelman, Brooklyn "probably made more spirits than any other place, including places we think of as being distillers like Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, and Pennsylvania" before Civil War taxation devastated the industry. Kings County isn't transplanting bourbon culture to Brooklyn — it's reconnecting with something that was already there.
The Pot Still Difference
Kings County uses Scottish-style copper pot stills rather than the column stills most American bourbon producers rely on. The difference, Spoelman has explained in multiple interviews, is texture: pot stills retain more original oils and flavor compounds, producing what he describes as a "buttery, rich texture" — like "the difference between luxury and budget ice cream."
"Our whiskeys tend to have more foodie flavors: chocolate, cinnamon, molasses," he told Alcohol Professor. "The big commercial whiskeys lean toward spicy, oaky, leathery characteristics." Combined with open fermentation borrowed from the Scotch tradition, Kings County produces genuinely different whiskey than what comes out of Kentucky.
Bourbon Myths, Busted
Spoelman literally wrote the book on bourbon — three of them: The Guide to Urban Moonshining, Dead Distillers, and The Bourbon Drinker's Companion. His biggest pet peeve? The myth that bourbon can only be made in Kentucky. It's a legal designation that can be made anywhere in the US.
His second target: water marketing. "Most Kentucky bourbons are made with municipal reverse osmosis filtered water," he's pointed out. "Distillation separates alcohol from water" — the source water matters far less than the marketing departments want you to believe. What actually matters: grain quality, fermentation, still shape, cuts, and barrel program.
One Million Bottles
In March 2026, Kings County announced the sale of its one-millionth bottle — a major milestone for a distillery that started with five tiny stills in a closet. "Kings County started selling in small 200ml and 375ml bottles, which connected the brand to a wide audience with a small production," Spoelman noted in the announcement.
Every single one of those bottles was produced in-house. "Kings County has always produced the whiskey under its own name from New York grain, mashing, distilling, and aging in house — a rarity for whiskey brands, including some that purport to be local," Spoelman said — a pointed jab at brands that bottle bulk sourced whiskey from Indiana under craft labels.
The milestone was marked with a limited edition straight bourbon (500 individually numbered bottles, $85/750ml, 45% ABV) and the symbolic millionth bottle permanently installed in the distillery's Boozeum.
The Product Line Today
Kings County now produces around 10 whiskeys: straight bourbon, peated bourbon (bridging American and Scottish traditions), Empire Rye (a geographic designation Spoelman helped establish for New York rye), chocolate whiskey made with cacao husks from Brooklyn's Mast Brothers, a seven-year bottled-in-bond, blended bourbon, and moonshine — including a jalapeño grapefruit variety. The distillery has been named Distillery of the Year twice — by the American Distilling Institute (2016) and the New Orleans Spirits Competition (2023).
What It Takes
"Financing the project of making whiskey for the future is the most challenging aspect of the business," Spoelman has said — every barrel is capital tied up for years. His advice to aspiring distillers: "Don't do it for the money. The role requires someone at the intersection of being a factory worker, a chef, and a storyteller."
And his favorite piece of wisdom: "The best businesses reflect the personality of their founders, so make the business about what you like, and it will find its audience."
Kings County found its audience. A million bottles later, from a room in Williamsburg to a landmark in the Navy Yard, the Kentucky kid with the moonshine suitcase built exactly the distillery he wanted to drink from.
Kings County Distillery is located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Bourbon, peated bourbon, Empire Rye, and the full product line are available across 30+ states and 6 countries. Visit The Gatehouse tasting room for tours and tastings.
