A Visit to Kings County Distillery
Come for the Whiskey, Stay for the Distillery Cats
A Visit to Kings County Distillery
Late Sunday afternoon, as the rain that had been pounding down all day let up and the unseasonably balmy temperature dropped and the gale-force winds picked up, I made way to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for a guided tour and whiskey tasting at Kings County Distillery. While I was looking forward to learning more about the operation and sampling their award-winning lineup of whiskey, I was also pretty excited for a meet-and-greet with their two distillery cats, Harold (Chief Attention Seeker) and Maude (Chief Napper).
I had been invited by Kings County’s Senior Tour Guide, Rick Kelaher, who often shares photos of the cats’ exploits on his Instagram, and I’ve featured the feline duo many times on @distillerycats, where I chronicle and spotlight the many spirited and hard-working cats punching in at distilleries, bars, wineries, pubs, and bottle shops. The @distillerycats Instagram began as research for my book Distillery Cats: Profiles in Courage of the World’s Most Spirited Mousers, but quickly turned into its own thing and now has more than 37.3K followers.
Rick Kelaher had also invited two other NYC cat enthusiasts, Jenny Pierson of The Cat Museum of New York City, and Sheila Massey, founder of Hard Hat Cats.
Pierson, an editor and freelance book publishing consultant, is a TNR-certified (Trap-Neuter-Return) volunteer and the Founding Executive Director of the Cat Museum of New York City, a proposed brick-and-mortar space which plans to curate and feature cat art exhibitions and educational programming to connect the public with the community of those dedicated to caring for cats (here’s her own rescue cat Churro). Pierson is also a certified New York City Sightseeing Guide and will be working this spring with Cats About Town Walking Tours, which offers historical cat tours in Brooklyn Heights (who wants to join me?!), the Financial District (which Pierson will lead), and the Lower East Side.
Massey’s TNR work with feral cats across New York City inspired her to create the non-profit organization Hard Hat Cats, which is dedicated to cat rescue and the elimination of rat poison by helping place feral and stray cats from the city animal shelter system in steady “jobs” at breweries, distilleries, hotels, shops, and gardens where the cats live healthy, independent lives doing what they do best: non-toxic pest control. Just look at this lineup of cats with a new lease on life thanks to Massey (she was also responsible for landing gainful employment for Harold and Maude at Kings County Distillery).
Although I pass by Kings County Distillery on a regular basis whenever I visit the nearby Wegman’s, I realized I hadn’t actually been inside since 2013 when I attended the book party for my friend Daniel Vaughn’s The Prophets of Smoked Meat: A Journey Through Texas Barbecue, hosted by Anthony Bourdain (RIP) (The Prophets of Smoked Meat: A Journey Through Texas Barbecue was the debut titles in Bourdain’s eponymous imprint with the publisher, Ecco) and featuring plenty of whiskey, beer, and smoked meats courtesy of Delaney Barbecue.