My return to spirits

Hard economic times have driven many a man to the bottle. In Brad Estabrooke’s case, they drove him to bottling. Specifically, it was a layoff from his job trading bonds in late 2008 that convinced Estabrooke to shift his sights from liquidity to liquor, and set up shop as a gin maker.

The result is Breuckelen Distillery, which opens its doors tomorrow, becoming the second legal distiller in the city since Prohibition, and the first to sell its wares directly to the public. Bottles of Estabrooke’s Breuckelen Gin — handcrafted in a high-ceilinged industrial space on the far west end of Brooklyn’s 19th Street — will sell for $35 apiece.

Brad Estabrooke oversees every step of the gin production.

“It’s taken more time, work and money than I ever dreamed,” says Estabrooke, as he runs out to forklift a wheat delivery off an idling truck.

Not that he’s complaining. As he hand-seals his first run of bottles in a pot of molten black wax, Estabrooke is realizing a vision that started taking shape several years ago, when he was having a few drinks with his girlfriend, Liz, with whom he lives in Windsor Terrace.

“We were talking about how much our jobs sucked and what was missing,” says the 31-year-old Maine native. “We thought, being able to make something and share it with people — that would be so rewarding.”

A wine drinker, he considered becoming a vintner, but not as any immediate possibility. “I figured I’d get rich and someday I’d have a little vineyard,” he says.

Then two things happened. He read a story in an in-flight magazine about how loosening federal laws had led to a rise in small spirits makers. And Wall Street tanked, shutting down his trading desk.

“If you’re serious about it, this is the time,” his girlfriend told him.

So he hit the library to read up on fermentation science, raised money from his family and friends, and began applying for permits.

While whiskey draws the most interest from artisanal distillers, Estabrooke chose gin for several reasons. First, he needed something he could sell right away, with no time out for aging. He wanted to use local ingredients, so rum was out. Vodka was a possibility, but, as he says, “Who wants to work all day to make something odorless and tasteless?”

Gin, whose juniper flavor is infused by botanicals that can range from cardamom to licorice, offered a chance to be creative.

Estabrooke landed on a blend of grapefruit and lemon peel, ginger and rosemary, perfecting it through a series of test batches.

While most gin makers use a base of neutral grain spirits bought from a commercial distiller, Estabrooke makes his own wheat spirits from scratch, sourcing organic grain from an upstate farm and fermenting it in massive plastic tubs. The result, he says, has a bolder profile than the London dry gins most casual drinkers know, with a “juniper and rosemary bouquet” and a “peppery ginger finish.”

With help from his girlfriend, Estabrooke manages every corner of the business, from keeping the books to sweeping the floor to visiting bars and liquor stores to drum up customers.

The response has been enthusiastic, he says. He made his first sales last week, to the Red Hook bar Botanica and to the Syosset, LI, shop Post Wines, whose buyer, Ian Reilly, says he appreciates both the quality of Estabrooke’s gin and the homegrown nature of his operation. “You know where it comes from and who makes it,” he says.

The distillery includes a tasting room where visitors can try a sample and ask questions. They can also buy a bottle, completing the path from wheat grinding to retail sale within a span of about 20 yards. It doesn’t get any more local than that.

Breuckelen Distillery, 77 19th St., Brooklyn. Tasting room open Thurs.-Fri. from 2 to 8 p.m. and Sat.-Sun. from noon to 6.

NYC gets back into the spirits

When it drips, it pours.

New York City, which once crawled with distilleries, has been dry since Prohibition in terms of spirit production. But Brooklyn is now in the middle of a booze boomlet, due in part to a change in state law that cut licensing fees for small distillers.

The first to stoke up a still was Kings County Distillery, a Williamsburg-based micro-batch operation. (While they were the first to distill, Breuckelen’s Brad Estabrooke notes that he was the first to legally sell, so both have a claim to the “first since Prohibition” mantle.) Kings County’s maiden product, an unaged corn whiskey sold in 200-millileter bottles with hand-typed labels ($20), will be sold starting tomorrow at UVA Wines and Spirits in Williamsburg (199 Bedford Ave. at North Sixth Street), where owners David Haskell and Colin Spoelman will host a tasting from noon to 4 p.m.

Then there’s New York Distillery, spearheaded by Brooklyn Brewery co-founder Tom Potter. He and his partners are currently renovating a space in Williamsburg where they hope to be making gin and rye whiskey by the end of the year. They’ll have a retail operation and a tasting room on-site, says Potter, who’s been doing “extensive testing” at an upstate distillery to perfect his recipes.