Tasting notes

nose

honeycomb and orange peel, with a dusting of cinnamon

palate

brittle toffee and dried apricot, then warming oak spice

finish

lingering; maple sweetness gives way to anise and almond marzipan

Mash bill

80% rye, 20% malted barley. The rye is Danko, a hardy variety with roots in Poland, grown by a farmer in Ancramdale in New York's Hudson Valley, and the barley is malted in England. There is no corn in the recipe, so the rye carries the whiskey. Rye was the everyday whiskey grain of New York and the mid-Atlantic until its decline after the 1870s, and the Empire Rye standard this bottle meets requires at least 75% New York-grown rye.

Awards

• Gold — ASCOT Awards 2026

Why it's craft

This is the first rye Kings County has had the stock to sell all year: it joined the core range in August 2025, about a decade after the distillery helped start the Empire Rye project. Empire Rye is a standard set by New York distillers: at least 75% New York-grown rye, distilled in New York, and aged to the rules for straight rye. Kings County, founded in 2010 by Colin Spoelman and David Haskell, mashes, ferments, distills and ages all of its whiskey at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and has never sold whiskey made anywhere else.