Booze News

Heartland Brewery Experiments With Whiskey-Making

Photo: Darrell Earskine

Brooklyn Brewery isn’t the only one getting into the distilling business. Heartland’s brewmaster, Kelly Taylor, tells us that Tuthilltown Spirits, the only New York distillery to open since Prohibition, is currently using unfermented samples of his brewery’s Farmer Jon’s Oatmeal Stout to make a small-batch whiskey that should be restaurant-ready in about four months. Two versions of the stout (one with hops and one without — it remains to be seen which will work better) have been augmented with Tuthilltown’s “distiller’s yeast” and run through a still twice (so as to extract the beer’s alcohol and subtle flavor). The whiskey is now aging in oak barrels, and when it’s ready for consumption, you’ll be the first to know.

Heartland Brewery Experiments With Whiskey-Making