“All London was Afloat:" A Brief History of Fort Hamilton
In the summer of 1775, a young Alexander Hamilton, fresh from starting his own small militia corps, made a name for himself by stealing British cannons from a stockade at the tip of Manhattan. A year later, in 1776, British warships sailed into New York Harbor to claim the city and its valuable port. One onlooker, Private Daniel McCurtin, “thought all London was afloat.”
The imposing force would push the nascent Continental Army out of Kip’s Bay and across the Hudson to New Jersey, not to re-enter the city until the war’s end. The Narrows Fort at the southwest tip of Brooklyn and at the entrance to New York Harbor was a last line of defense, firing at the HMS Asia in a valiant, yet ultimately doomed attempt at resistance. Soon after it was abandoned during the Continental Army’s flight. Today, 245 years after the British Navy seized New York, the site of the Narrows Fort is now occupied by Fort Hamilton, the only active military installation in New York City. Fortunately for whiskey drinkers, this time, a Brit made it through without a fight.
A New British Invasion
In 2016, Fort Hamilton lent its name to a new whiskey distillery focused on reviving rye, the cornerstone spirit of American revolutionaries after the British cut off their rum supply. In an historical twist one hopes Private McCurtin would enjoy, that new distillery is led by Alex Clark, a Londoner by birth, who, 20+ years after coming stateside as an exotic currency trader, still sports a classic Estuary accent and a salesman’s excitement that’s straight-out infectious.
Alex first came to New York in 1998, spending his first few years on both sides of the bar as a bartender and spirits enthusiast (outside work hours, of course). I put an emphasis on enthusiast, since five seconds of discussion with the man exposes his passion for all things spirits-related. A few years later, he helped launch Widow Jane, one of the first whiskey producers in New York City after Prohibition. Alex spent several years with Widow Jane as Director of Sales, helping to develop the brand story and source the whiskey until leaving in 2014 to pursue other opportunities. Two years later, Fort Hamilton Distillery was born.
Alex is the definition of a creative type. During my time with him at the Fort Hamilton Distillery in Industry City, Brooklyn, his energy suffused the industrial space. He flitted around and between rooms with new ideas and topics in ways that demonstrated how he has made the space his own. Thankfully, he had a nearly blank canvas to work with.
He also had an ace up his sleeve: his wife, Amy Grindeland, who has been involved since the beginning. Amy prefers to let Alex take the limelight, but like the best designers and stylists, her influence is felt and seen everywhere. Amy had a hand in design elements and direction for the brand and bottlings, helped design the tasting room she now manages, and represents the brand at tastings when needed as a brand ambassador. Most importantly – according to Alex, the trusted source here – Amy “puts up with my nonsense without too much complaint!”. As much as Alex is the perfect ‘face-of-a-brand’ type, Amy is the type to keep feet on the ground with a deft touch and humor. Alex notes that Amy runs the bottling line to this day: when bottling batch 1, Amy looked to Alex and said “I find your lack of efficiency disturbing…she’s been in charge ever since.”
Industry City
Industry City abuts the lower entrance to New York Harbor, just south of the Gowanus and west of the historic Greenwood Cemetery. Its waterside location was chosen in the late 1800s for its accessibility. The long-disused train tracks encircling the six elongated U-shaped buildings are broken up by tracks extending deep into each of the U’s. Standing in front of the Fort Hamilton Tasting Bar, Alex pointed out how train cars would be brought into the center of the buildings off of barges to be filled with industrial materials and goods and re-barged across the river.
In exploring the space before meeting up with Alex, I was immediately reminded of Chelsea Market: the repurposing of a former city-block-long Nabisco factory into a mixed-use space of food stalls, stores, artisan shops, and more was echoed throughout the Industry City buildings. The first and second floors are populated with storefronts ranging from single-store proprietors to well-known operations. Axe-throwing exists side-by-side with a barbecue joint, a bookstore, and an extension of Sahadi’s, a well-known and Brooklyn-based Mediterranean food mecca.
Fort Hamilton’s Home
Fort Hamilton exists on the second floor of one of the less-developed peripheral buildings (more on that below). When I visited, there was no sign by the door, and no mention of Fort Hamilton inside or outside the building. The entrance was denoted by a single orange cone. A week after my visit, Fort Hamilton opened for tours, so I can’t speak to what signage has or hasn’t been installed since then. A quick 20 steps in, however, and the entirety of the distillery’s being comes into view.
The initial room – where the stills are imminently to be installed – holds all of Fort Hamilton’s behind-the-scenes operations, including aging barrels, bottling, labeling, and all manner of whiskey paraphernalia. The adjoining space is now the Fort Hamilton tasting bar (now open for tours and, COVID-permitting, open soon for more on-site activities). The bar is stacked with Fort Hamilton’s four whiskey selections – three ryes and a bourbon – all ready to receive their first public visitors.
One bottle on the bar was filled with grain, the 90% rye and 10% malted barley recipe of Fort Hamilton’s own spirit. It’s a small thing, easy to overlook if you’re not looking for it, and yet looking back I found it representative of Fort Hamilton’s entire ethos: it was transparent, and I’m not just talking about the glass.
The Tour
I spent the better part of two hours with Alex, walking through the space and tasting through his products. As I usually do in these situations, I asked beforehand (and at several points throughout) if there were any off-limit topics or any things to which Alex could not speak openly. Every distillery/producer has something they can’t talk about, but it’s noticeable when those topics are few and far between.
As we exited the tasting bar and walked through the concrete corridors, Alex pointed to three things that spoke to his ambition, his foresight, and the challenges faced not just by the industry at large but by the individuals behind the stills. Adjacent rooms were vacant, some with papered-over floors and some with no signs anyone had ever been there. According to Alex, more than one of those spaces were intended for distillers, brewers, and related manufacturers; however, many of those deals had fallen through due to the COVID pandemic.
Fort Hamilton has also felt the pandemic’s effects, with the tasting bar’s opening greatly delayed and supply chain issues a constant threat. Though Alex, with the help of Barrel Strength Talent founder Lia Niskanen, has weathered the storm by expanding his sales and footprint to a regional level, there were signs of strain. Huge pallets of glass bottles, still in their shipping wrap, stood in the open space. The recent glass shortages from Italy, France, and China have put immense strain on the global supply chain; while Alex was able to source these bottles from an American supplier, he gave a wary look to the stocks, as though the bottles were the last he’d see for some time.
On a more positive note, he pointed out a large room across from the tasting bar as a potential aging room. When filled, the space could hold several hundred barrels of Fort Hamilton whiskey. The bad fortune for some of his spirit compatriots has opened doors, literally and figuratively, for Alex to grow Fort Hamilton right where it is. Time will tell if those opportunities come to pass, but it speaks to Alex and Lia’s thought process that the ideas are already there.
But What About the Whiskey?
Of course, no visit to a distillery is complete without seeing the barrels and tasting the product. Fort Hamilton currently uses barrels from The Barrel Mill in Minnesota, with 30-gallon being the preferred size. Those barrels are charred to a #3 level: when I asked whether different sizes and chars had been used, Alex was again transparent. He had played around with 25-gallon barrels from Kelvin Cooperage and had tested the liquid in barrels from #2 to #4 char, finding that the 30-gallon #3 char was the right recipe for the flavor profile he sought.
Most of Fort Hamilton’s aging whiskey stocks are in those 30-gallon #3 char barrels. A quick glance around the initial space and tasting bar quickly turn the eye to much larger vessels, 53-gallon barrels that are the standard in American whiskey. So, I asked the obvious question: what are those barrels there for?
The answer is simple: Fort Hamilton’s single barrel and cask strength rye are aged entirely in the 30-gallon size, with only their proprietary 90/10 rye mash bill filling the staves. For the double barrel rye and double barrel bourbon, however, Alex blends in some whiskey from MGP in Indiana. The choice to marry his own 70/25/5 bourbon stocks with some 60/36/4 MGP bourbon (or his 70/25/5 rye with 95/5 MGP rye) is purposeful: the double barrel products, while solid enough to stand on their own, are meant to be Fort Hamilton’s contribution to the region’s bar wells. In fact, Alex points this out in showing the different bottle shapes – the double barrel rye and bourbon are in bottles with an ergonomic neck, easy for a bartender to grab and pour with full control. The single barrel and cask strength are in more squat, cylindrical bottles with a straight neck, meant for a slower, more considerate pour into a rocks glass.
Everything, it seems, has been thought through. The choice of bottle shape was made before the glass shortage, instead stemming from Alex’s lengthy experience behind a bar. The barrel size and char level were tested, not arbitrary. The space already in use and the vacant neighboring rooms are seen as opportunities. The choice to produce whiskies specifically for bar/mixing use reminded me of Proof and Wood’s Dave Schmier producing Roulette Rye – in my interview with Dave, he was candid in saying that Roulette Rye can stand on its own but was chosen and designed with bartenders’ input and their needs in mind.
Sampling the Wares
Alex was kind enough to provide samples for me to taste at home – trust me, it’s virtually impossible to try something in a distillery and be fully objective. As you’ll see in my reviews of each whiskey, the clarity of vision translates well to the spirits. Full editorial control remains with me, but I thank Alex for his generosity, nonetheless.
At around four-to-five years old, all of the whiskies are ready (though, being honest, the ryes are the stars of the show, as they should be!). The double barrel products are good on their own but perform better when put to their purpose in a cocktail or simple mixed drink. The single barrel rye and its cask strength variant show none of the youthful notes sometimes found in younger rye. The lower proof version is a great introduction to the Fort Hamilton house style, and the cask strength at 117 proof is right where I like a rye to be, full-bodied and spicy without blowing out the palate.
What Comes Next?
As with Fort Hamilton’s namesake, the modern Alex is as far from idle as one can be. Upcoming ventures include whiskey-infused chocolate: I tried some made from cocoa beans aged in rum casks, and if that’s any indication I can’t wait for the whiskey ones to come out.
Alex, Amy, and Lia continue to build their footprint across the region – I ran into Alex just a few weeks later at a spirits event, gesturing and ebullient as ever. Despite being on the periphery location-wise, his picnic table was constantly surrounded with newcomers looking to try this truly American spirit, made by a Londoner in the city where Alexander Hamilton first made his name.
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of distilleries across New York and the northeast making rye, most of them less than a decade old. Even some of the older ones are still figuring out how to make a rye that is at once delicious, affordable, and representative of the region. To check even two of those boxes, let alone all three, is a rarer occurrence than one would expect given the region’s centuries-old history.
Alex, Amyand Fort Hamilton Distillery have successfully navigated the terrain and represented the terroir, achieving in just five years what many contemporaries haven’t in twice the time. With Lia joining over the summer to take the brand to new heights, the sky is the limit for this group. Count me among those convinced – Fort Hamilton is the real deal.
The Tasting Notes
Fort Hamilton Single Barrel New York Rye
Classification: New York Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Origin: Fort Hamilton Distillery
Mashbill: 90% Rye, 10% Malted Barley
Proof: 90 (45% ABV)
Age: ~4 Years
Location: New York
Eye: Green iced tea. Very thin rims and splotchy droplets.
Nose: Fresh, grainy rye sweetness. Caramelizing rye at the bottom of a pot still. Tart apples and toasting bread.
Palate: Definitely a sweeter, less herbal rye, though there’s a lot of dill and fennel at the back. Pleasant proof heat gives way to malty caramels and a coating lacquer. Mouthfeel is light-to-medium, more herbal but still sweet, spicy tingles, mildly oily but still coating.
Finish: Dark chocolate makes an appearance as the toasted grain settles in. Medium-length, slightly savory twist ending.
Overall: This is a very approachable rye that is deceptively complex. The additional malt content adds needed body to a rye that goes from sweet to spicy to herbal and back. At just around four years old, it’s already ready for the shelf. Can’t wait to see it even a year or two from now.
Fort Hamilton Double Barrel Rye
Classification: Blend of Straight Rye Whiskies
Origin: Fort Hamilton Distillery and MGP
Mashbill: 90% Rye, 10% Malted Barley Recipe and a 95% Rye, 5% Malted Barley Rye
Proof: 92 (46% ABV)
Age: ~4 Years
Location: New York and Indiana
Eye: Apple juice. Thin rim, globular, slow legs.
Fort Hamilton Double Barrel Bourbon
Nose: Gentle rye nose, neither sweet nor herbal up front. No proof heat. The scent of entering a bakery, minus any yeastiness.
Palate: The 95/5 dill starts out in front, but the malty sweetness from the 90/10 catches up quickly. Elements of assam tea, mint, toasting mixed nuts in the shell. Mouthfeel is silky and oily, light tingle all over my tongue. Coating for a few seconds before turning effervescent.
Finish: The two ryes both play to the end, with the less sweet balancing some late-arriving Werther’s candies. Short side of medium.
Overall: Can stand on its own neat or on the rocks, though this shines best where it’s meant to: in a cocktail or a simple mixer.
Fort Hamilton Single Barrel Cask Strength New York Rye
Classification: Blend of Straight Bourbon Whiskies
Origin: Fort Hamilton Distillery and MGP
Mashbill: 60% Corn, 36% Rye, 4% Malted Barley Recipe and a 70% Corn, 25% Rye, 5% Malted Barley Recipe
Proof: 92 (46% ABV)
Age: ~4 Years
Location: New York and Indiana
Eye: Golden Apple juice. Medium rims and syrupy droplet legs.
Nose: Roasting corn on the cob. Gentle corn and rye both come forward. Orchard fruit, but more like applewood freshly cut than the actual fruit.
Palate: Takes a minute to open up, with a mild proof burn hitting first. Even though it’s two bourbons, the rye components are what shine as the dominant flavors, with mint, sweet herbs, and maturing grain. Mouthfeel is oily, with a touch of baking spice, black pepper, coating, and a medium body.
Finish: Here’s where the bourbon profile hits hardest. The rye remains present, but the corn is now the star. Apple cider mulling on the tongue.
Overall: Takes a minute to open up fully – my suggestion is to taste first before sniffing, then the nose will come out more fully. Like the double barrel rye, can stand on its own but works best in a cocktail.
Fort Hamilton Single Barrel Cask Strength New York Rye
Classification: New York Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Origin: Fort Hamilton Distillery
Mashbill: 90% Rye, 10% Malted Barley
Proof: 117 (57.5% ABV)
Age: ~4 Years
Location: New York
Eye: Maple syrup. Medium rims and syrupy droplets.
Nose: If you could make caramel pop-rye instead of pop-corn, this would be it. Brown sugar, baking spices, not much proof heat surprisingly. Herbs are sweet and roll back into the caramel brittle base.
Palate: A good rye punch buttressed with lots of dark brown sugar, clove, star anise, and black pepper. The proof is right on target, flavorful without being burning. Mouthfeel is coating, creamy and spicy simultaneously, opening more black pepper, toasted almonds, and black cherry.
Finish: Medium-length and tingling, all those flavors coming forward in a final crescendo before fading gracefully to the core rye profile.
Overall: This was great to excellent. A rye around 115-120 is right where I like them, and this one hit all the right notes. A brown sugar and spice bomb. The heat is strong, but newer blow-your-palate hot. Really well done.
