Brooklyn whiskey maker closes, and its prices go through the roof

Red Hook’s 13-year-old whiskey maker, Van Brunt Stillhouse, has closed, founder Daric Schlesselman confirmed on Thursday — and New York fans of the brand have been scrambling to buy up some of its last bottles. Online resale prices for Van Brunt products have more than doubled, with some websites selling 750 ML bottles for nearly $190. Previously, such bottles would have retailed for around $60.

“When I even heard an inkling that they could have been going under, I was like, 'There's an opportunity here,'” said longtime Van Brunt fan and Bushwick resident Jon Pichaya Ferry.

Ferry began buying up Van Brunt — which is named for early borough settler Cornelius Van Brunt — wherever he could find it, although stock was rare and significantly marked up. To date, he’s spent about $1,000 total buying up all the Van Brunt he’s been able to find.

“If I'm wrong, then I'm an idiot that just dropped a grand on a really good Brooklyn whiskey that isn't discontinued,” he said. “If I'm correct, then it was a great play.”

Turns out the rumor mill was accurate: The small batch distillery shut down quietly over the summer, Schlesselman said.

When Brooklyn Heights resident and whiskey aficionado Zachary Ostrow heard the rumor Van Brunt might be out of business, he also decided to buy a few bottles — except he couldn’t find any at his local spirit shops. He expanded his search to the rest of Brooklyn, and then Manhattan, but had no luck.

“I definitely went to more than 20 places,” he said. “Everywhere pretty much told me the same thing — ‘I haven’t seen it or carried it in a few years.’”

Schlesselman, the Van Brunt founder, said he wasn’t aware that bottles were reselling for triple their former rate, but he also wasn’t surprised.

“Welcome to capitalism,” he said. “If people were willing to pay those prices before, maybe the business would still be open.”

As for why Van Brunt had to close up shop, Schlesselman said “there are multiple factors that caused its demise.” He listed reasons including many inherent to the challenges of running a small business in NYC: rising rents, rising production costs and his own rising health care costs, all while “my [product] prices never went up.”

Schlesselman isn't closed to the idea of one day reopening Van Brunt, but for now he’s moved on to consulting work in the beverage world.

Meanwhile, there's a clear vision to keep the distillery and attached tasting room open in another form. The 15-year-old Gowanus-based company Brooklyn Gin took over Schlesselman’s lease late last year and plans to reopen the tasting room sometime next month.

“We love the community here and we have a deep respect for what Daric has built there. Our goal is to build on that legacy,” Brooklyn Gin co-founder Emil Jättne said. “We're not honestly changing much.”

As for whether Red Hook is ready to enter its gin era, “Uh, hopefully we can help out with that.”