“Times down here ain’t what they used to be when the old stuff was flowing from the still,” a clay-pipe-puffing Vinegar Hill resident told the Times, in 1894. He went on, “The fellows who had luck have all moved up town, where they are living in brownstone houses, wearing diamonds, and driving fast horses.” The “fellows” were those who’d prospered from vast illicit distilling operations, until raids shut them down. Now new hooch flows in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, near former bootlegging battlefields; on summer Fridays and Saturdays, in the pleasant garden of the Kings County Distillery, one can enjoy a mint julep or a John Collins (apologies to Tom—it has bourbon in lieu of gin). The distillery is in a brick building with the warm smell of a country club’s oak locker room. Outside, one recent afternoon, Hank Williams, on the stereo, lamented, “My bucket’s got a hole in it / I can’t buy no beer” as people at picnic tables sampled honey moonshine (flavored with honeycombs from the Brooklyn Grange’s apiaries) and bitter chocolate whiskey (infused with Mast Brothers’ cacao husks). The sun had set on what the Times dubbed the “golden era for the bold and buoyant brigands” with their “mountain dew,” but it still shone upon those playing corn hole and sipping mercifully legal Manhattans. The waiter called patrons “miss” and “boss.” They seemed like the type to drive fast horses. ♦
Emma Allen is The New Yorker’s cartoon editor and edits humor pieces on newyorker.com.
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