Six Free Whiskey Tastings in NYC This August
On Thursday August 20, Astor Wines is pouring an Indian single malt , free, from 5 to 8 PM. Nothing like it has headlined a tasting on this calendar since February 2020.
It used to be a regular fixture. Amrut poured at Ward III, at Noorman's Kil and at Brandy Library between 2010 and 2012, back when a bar in Williamsburg would put an Indian distiller behind the taps on a Tuesday. Paul John came through Astor in 2017 and again in 2018, and ran a near-annual slot at Bottlerocket until February 2020. Then it stopped.
Indri is not either of those, and has never been poured at an event we have listed. It comes from Piccadily Distilleries in Haryana, distilled from six-row Indian barley. Trini, the flagship, is named for the three cask types it matures in and took Best in Show at the Whiskies of the World awards in 2023 . Astor also takes 15 percent or more off any spirit poured at its tastings that day.
The bourbon
The rest of the free month is American, and most of it is at BQE Wine & Liquors , the Greenpoint shop on Meeker Ave, which accounts for half the free tastings on the August calendar.
Maker's Mark — Saturday August 8, 5–8 PM. The wheated bourbon most people start on and plenty quietly never leave: soft, sweet, low on the rye bite. A reasonable thing to bring someone who insists they don't like bourbon.
Elijah Craig Small Batch — Saturday August 15, 4–7 PM. Heaven Hill dropped the 12-year age statement in 2016 and a lot of people complained. It is still the bourbon most drinkers measure the shelf against. Char, vanilla and baking spice.
Angel's Envy — Friday August 28, 4–7 PM. Finished in port barrels, which lays stewed fruit over the usual bourbon frame. Divisive among purists, popular with everyone else.
Bulleit — Saturday August 15, 4–7 PM, at K&D Wines on Madison Avenue. The only free tasting this month with two whiskeys on the table: Bulleit Bourbon runs a 28 percent rye mash bill, Bulleit 95 Rye is 95 percent rye distilled at MGP in Indiana. Side by side, they are the cheapest way to learn what rye actually does.
Dewar's 12 — Saturday August 29, 4–7 PM, back at K&D. A blended Scotch, and a sane palate cleanser after a month of American oak.
The one worth paying for
Brandy Library in Tribeca runs Great Japanese Whisky on Saturday August 15, 3 to 5:30 PM, $215.20. Six pours: the Hakushu 18 and the Yamazaki 18, Nikka Yoichi, Nikka Frontier, Ichiro's Malt Mizunara Wood Reserve and a Fuji 50th Anniversary bottling, with a cocktail and food.
That is what a class like this is for. Age-statement Suntory has been allocated for years and a bottle of the Hakushu 18 runs into the hundreds when a shop has one at all — and nobody buys six bottles at that money to find out which one they actually like. Two and a half hours with all six in front of you, and someone whose job is to explain them, is the cheap version of an expensive education.
One at the ballpark
Whiskey and Weenies — Thursday August 13, 6:40 PM at Maimonides Park. Widow Jane pours in a private tasting area while the Brooklyn Cyclones play; $45.89 covers the game, the whiskey, two hot dogs and a hat. We wrote that one up on its own , and there are tickets to win.
Six free pours and two paid ones. Shop tastings get added and cancelled at short notice, so the events calendar is the live version. If you get to the Indri, tell us how it was — it has been a long wait.
