Van Brunt Stillhouse

Van Brunt Stillhouse is the Red Hook, Brooklyn craft whiskey operation founded in 2012 by Daric Schlesselman — a former television producer (most notably on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) who left television production to build one of the most editorially serious small-batch craft American whiskey operations on the Brooklyn waterfront. Located at 6 Bay Street in the Red Hook neighborhood (a few blocks from Widow Jane's Conover Street facility and within the broader Red Hook craft-beverage and craft-food cluster), Van Brunt Stillhouse occupies a converted commercial building that combines the working distillery with an on-site tasting room and cocktail bar.

The Van Brunt name references Cornelis Van Brunt, the Dutch farmer who in 1640 owned the land that's now Red Hook — a piece of pre-American-Revolution Brooklyn history that anchors the brand's editorial identity in the broader Dutch-colonial Brooklyn heritage that runs through much of Red Hook's neighborhood character. Schlesselman built the distillery deliberately at small scale to support a hands-on small-batch production approach that lets him personally oversee every step from grain selection through bottling.

The product range covers Van Brunt American Whiskey (the flagship — a small-batch unaged-and-aged blend that's distinctive in the broader American whiskey field), Van Brunt Rye Whiskey, Van Brunt Single Malt Whiskey (one of the early American Single Malt programs from a New York producer), Van Brunt Bourbon, Van Brunt Empire Rye (one of the Empire Rye category members), Van Brunt Field Day Wheat Whiskey, Van Brunt Brewer's Whiskey (made from a brewery wort base, a brewing-tradition-influenced production approach), Van Brunt Grappa, Van Brunt Cassis, and a substantial range of seasonal and limited cocktail-program releases. The breadth across spirit categories is unusual for an operation this small.

The Red Hook visitor experience runs through the working distillery floor and the on-site tasting room and cocktail bar. The Bay Street location puts Van Brunt within walking distance of Widow Jane (Conover Street), Cacao Prieto, and the broader Red Hook restaurant and bar cluster — three of the most distinctive Brooklyn craft producers operating in a single neighborhood, all within a 10-minute walk of each other. For NYC visitors building a Brooklyn craft-spirits day that combines the major Brooklyn distillery destinations, Van Brunt is the small-batch, founder-led counter-program to the higher-volume Kings County and Widow Jane operations.