NYC Whisky in October 2026: Single-Brand Pours and Sit-Down Flights

The surest way to get to know a whisky is to taste it beside its siblings: a single distillery's range, poured side by side, with someone behind the counter who can say why the bonded rye reads drier than the small batch. New York's bottle shops do exactly that most weeks this October, joined this month by a whisky bar in Brooklyn, and it is where most of the month's tastings happen.

One distillery at a time

Astor Wines runs three of these single distillery tastings. On October 10 it pours Jaywalk Whiskies from New York Distilling Co from 3:00 to 6:00 PM: Heirloom Rye, Bonded Straight Rye and Small Batch Straight Rye together. That is the way to hear how one Brooklyn distillery's rye shifts with proof and mash. Nikka Whiskies follows on October 15 (5:00 to 8:00 PM), the Japanese house's blends and single malts side by side. Angel's Envy on October 24 (3:00 to 6:00 PM) does the same for its port- and rum-finished bourbons. All three are free.

Two more single-brand pours share the evening of October 2, both 5:00 to 8:00 PM. BQE Wine & Liquors focuses on Aberfeldy 12, the honeyed Highland single malt, and Bottlerocket on Nc'nean Organic Whisky, a young organic single malt from a carbon-neutral Highland distillery. Both are free, and both are the kind of unhurried counter tasting where you can ask questions and take your time.

Brooklyn has a version of this at the bar rather than the counter, and one of the pours is the thing I am most pleased to see on the calendar this month. I visited the Isle of Harris distillery not long after it opened, on a bike tour of the Outer Hebrides, and all they could sell me then was the gin. The whisky was still years off in cask. It is ready now, and it has finally reached New York. On October 1 (5:00 to 8:00 PM) Travel Bar, the whisky bar on Court Street, marks its US arrival. They’re pouring the distillery's first single malt, The Hearach , with brand ambassador Robin Coupar behind the table.

The next evening belongs to one of my favourite distilleries in the region. Tenmile , up in Wassaic, makes American single malt from New York barley. On October 2 (4:00 to 7:00 PM) it brings its Revolutionary series down to Brooklyn: bottlings named for the battles of 1776, fifty-seven planned in all, the Battle of Brooklyn among them.

Two more single-distillery nights are down as save-the-dates, Bruichladdich on October 8 and an Augusta bourbon tasting on October 20, both 6:00 to 8:00 PM, with details still to come.

When it's worth sitting down

Brandy Library is where the money goes, and in October it earns it. Great Scotch Whisky on October 10 (3:00 to 5:30 PM, $185) is a seated flight through Kilkerran, Benriach 16 Year Old and Ardbeg Traigh Bhan 19 Year Old. That is a Campbeltown, a sherried Speyside and a nineteen-year Islay.

For less money and a different purpose, Everything You Wanted to Know About Bourbon at Astor Center on October 5 (6:30 to 8:30 PM, $89) is the one to send a beginner to. It is a class rather than a pour. The $89 buys the vocabulary of mash bills, char and what age does and doesn't do, which turns a counter tasting from guesswork into something you can read.

One more is a ticketed tasting rather than a single-brand pour: Zachy's Wines and Liquor runs Whiskies Around the World on October 14 (5:00 to 7:00 PM), a guided tour across regions in one evening.

One name runs through the month. Allen Katz, who co-founded Brooklyn's New York Distilling Company and created its Jaywalk rye, turns up three times. The Jaywalk pour at Astor on the 10th is the hands-off version; the two worth booking are the ones where he is in the room. On October 7 he leads a Whiskey Society evening at The Copper Still in Chelsea (7:00 to 9:00 PM), built around the bar's own Copper Still Original Rye. Eight days later he is back at the distillery on Johnson Avenue for Blend Your Own Whiskey (October 15, from 6:00 PM), a ticketed session where you taste eight single barrels distilled from Horton rye and blend a 200ml bottle to carry out. It is about as hands-on as whisky gets in this city.

A night out, not a tasting

The month closes with the one event built as an evening rather than a flight. Whiskey Washback at the Bowery Hotel on October 30 (6:00 to 9:30 PM, $109) puts whiskey alongside food and music, a night out with a dram in hand rather than a lineup to study. It has enough going on to deserve a closer look, which is coming separately.

So October rewards more than one appetite. You can spend an unhurried hour at a shop counter — or a bar's back table in Brooklyn — getting to know a single distillery, take a seat in one of the paid rooms where the whisky is chosen and poured for you, blend a rye of your own with the man behind Jaywalk, or make a proper evening of it at the Bowery Hotel. Brandy Library is the pick of the sit-down options. If you get to the Nc'nean pour or that Bowery night, tell us how they were.