(Photo courtesy of Valery Rizzo)

While researching the book that was published last year as A Guide to Urban Moonshining: How to Make and Drink Whiskey, Kings County Distillery founder Colin Spoelman found himself delving into the colorful history of NYC distilling. Digging deeper, he found the bones of truth beneath embellished tales of dastardly Kentucky bootleggers, as well as the real bones of actual distillers: Greenwood cemetery, it turns out, was founded by the son of Hezekiah Pierrepont—a big man in 19th century Brooklyn’s thriving distillery scene who is buried in the cemetery—and many expired distillers lie beneath the manicured lawns.
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