History Goes Down Easy with Whiskey at Fort Hamilton Distillery

Fort Hamilton Distillery photo courtesy Fort Hamilton Distillery

A distillery in Brooklyn recently began offering tours and tastings with a side of history. Fort Hamilton was founded in 2016 and specializes in authentic and classic New York Rye, as well as other whiskies. The distillery is named for the historic Brooklyn site Fort Hamilton, which itself is named for Alexander Hamilton and was a training site during the Civil War. The distillery takes a serious interest in both American and cocktail history, managing to combine the two in a fascinating new tour that launched at the end of September 2021.

Fort Hamilton Distillery

Fort Hamilton owner and founder Alex Clark, a bartending Brit who moved to New York and fell in love with the cocktail scene of the early 2000s, became motivated by the revival of classic cocktails. “Fort Hamilton was inspired by the desire to recreate and champion America’s original whiskey—rye whiskey,” says Clark. “Having made cocktails for years in NYC including with the late, great Sasha Petraske, I learned that the original classic cocktails demand rye as a base (like the Manhattan and Old Fashioned), which made me wonder why there wasn’t any available.”

He soon discovered that most of New York City’s urban distilleries that produced the stuff were forced to close during Prohibition. Authentic rye must be made with mostly rye (which happens to grow very well in New York) and some malted barley—no corn. But most whiskey made after Prohibition was corn-based bourbon, usually made in the South, with government-subsidized corn. Soon, bourbon was king and rye, especially New York rye, fell out of favor.

Fort Hamilton rye photo courtesy Fort Hamilton Distillery

Fort Hamilton’s Rye Whiskey

Fort Hamilton rye whiskey honors the authentic rye tradition by using no corn and avoiding artificial colorings and flavorings. The beautiful bottle label on their flagship rye depicts Alexander Hamilton’s Hearts of Oak Militia raid on lower Manhattan in August 1775, where they seized and repurposed the battery of British cannons, thereafter forming America’s first artillery company.

Filling bottles photo courtesy Fort Hamilton Distillery

Rye Revolution Tours

Visitors will learn all this and more on the Rye Revolution Tours at their Industry City distillery. But they’ll also get to learn how whiskey is made and distilled, tasting pure, unaged whiskey. The aging process is also covered, with samples of charred oak and an in-depth explanation of charring and aging. Best of all, guests can have a taste of aged Fort Hamilton rye straight from the barrel, using a Scottish whiskey thief to extract the sample from the barrel.

After learning all about the distilling and aging process, guests are invited to fill and label their own bottle of whiskey using the filling machine, which filters the whiskey as it goes into the bottle, corking it, placing the gold embossed label on the bottle, shrink wrapping the top, and, finally, writing in the number of years it’s been aged on the label. “I love seeing peoples faces as they fill a bottle of whiskey! Priceless,” says Clark.

Fort Hamilton bar photo courtesy Fort Hamilton Distillery

The tour ends at the wooden bar with a tasting of the distillery’s offerings. First is Fort Hamilton’s flagship single barrel rye, made of 90 percent rye and 10 percent malted barley, both grown in New York State. Next is a double barrel straight rye that better lends itself to cocktails—since Clark has a bartending background he was keen to make a more affordable bottle for mixing. The third tasting is of their double barrel high rye bourbon, a bourbon made from 75 percent corn and 20 percent rye. Finally, guests finish with a taste of their barrel aged maple syrup, made with a maple producer in the Catskills and aged in their rye barrels for a couple of months.

Soon, craft cocktails will also be available at the bar and a gin is also in the works.