Barrel-Making, Spirits Tasting & Cocktail Aging — A Fort Hamilton Distillery Workshop

Workshop at a Glance

Must be 21 or older to attend — this workshop includes a hosted spirits tasting.

Price: Starting at $415 per person

Duration: 4 hours

Location: Craftsman Ave Workshop at 68 34th St. Brooklyn, NY 11232

Class size: Our workshops are intentionally kept intimate — small enough that every guest receives the personal attention they deserve, with enough skilled guides on hand to ensure no question goes unanswered and no detail is missed. Most workshops usually include no more than 12 to 15 guests.

Skill Level : Beginner-friendly, no coopering or sake knowledge required.

What You’ll Be Making : A functional 2-liter oak barrel, coopered from scratch and ready to age spirits and cocktails.

What You’ll Be Doing: Building, charring, and branding your own barrel, tasting Fort Hamilton’s rye, bourbon, and gin with a distillery expert, and filling your barrel with a cocktail to age at home.

What’s Included? All barrel materials and tools and a guided Fort Hamilton spirits tasting. Maple Old Fashioned ingredients are available for purchase from Fort Hamilton at 15% off.

What To Expect

Build your own barrel and discover the spirits made right upstairs. Craftsman Ave teams up with Fort Hamilton Distillery for an afternoon of hands-on craftsmanship, guided tasting, and a cocktail worth waiting for.

Located in Brooklyn’s Industry City, Fort Hamilton crafts premium rye whiskey, bourbon, vodka, and gin. Named after the historic Fort Hamilton Army Base, the distillery brings a revolutionary spirit to its mission of recapturing America’s finest spirits, with New York Rye at its heart.

You’ll assemble an oak barrel stave by stave, char the inside with a torch, seat the heads, and brand it with your initials. Then fill it on the spot with a Fort Hamilton Barrel-Aged Maple Old Fashioned. The ingredients are available to purchase from the Fort Hamilton team during the workshop at a special 15% collaboration discount.

What You’ll Create

A functional 2-liter oak barrel, coopered from scratch with your own hands. You’ll assemble staves and hoops, cut crozes—the grooves that hold the barrel heads—on the router table, and char the interior until it’s ready for spirits.

Your finished barrel is ready to become home to a Maple Old Fashioned made with Fort Hamilton rye whiskey, barrel-aged maple syrup, and black walnut bitters. The ingredients are available for purchase from Fort Hamilton during the workshop. You bring the craftsmanship; oak and time provide the finishing touch.

The Tasting Flight

A Fort Hamilton expert guides you through a tasting of the distillery’s spirits, exploring the ingredients, flavors, and craft behind each pour. Discover rye’s bold spice, bourbon’s richness, and the character of Fort Hamilton’s gin, while learning how wood can shape a spirit—and a cocktail.

What Barrel Aging Actually Does

Oak is an ingredient in its own right. It contributes vanilla, caramel, and spice, while charring changes how the wood interacts with the spirits inside.

As your Maple Old Fashioned rests in the barrel, those flavors mingle with the rye, maple, and bitters. Taste it along the way and choose when it’s ready to pour. The result is a cocktail shaped by your barrel, your patience, and your palate.

Finish the Night at Fort Hamilton Distillery & Tasting Room

Your barrel’s built, but the evening doesn’t have to end. Head upstairs to Fort Hamilton’s tasting room for a cocktail and a little more Brooklyn spirit. Your Craftsman Ave ticket gets you a discount on Fort Hamilton spirits to take home for your next barrel-aged creation.

Declare Independence. Build your barrel. Make it Fort Hamilton.