Brad Estabrooke

The Climb

Business/Managerial Economics at Bentley University shaped the early part of Brad Estabrooke’s training, and that background still reads in the way he runs a distillery. Since 2010, he has been founder of Breuckelen Distilling Company and is president of Breuckelen Distilling Company Inc. The transition from business study to still work is direct: one side brings administration and planning, the other brings fermentation, distillation, and the discipline of making decisions batch by batch.

Today

Those responsibilities sit together in one operation, with Brad Estabrooke holding both the business end and the production side of Breuckelen Distilling Company. That combination keeps direction and flavor close to each other, so the company’s administrative choices and its spirits are shaped in the same house. Gin and whiskey are the center of the portfolio, and the method is openly taste-led rather than tradition-led. Estabrooke puts it plainly: “We follow our taste buds in crafting our recipes. Rather than sticking to tradition, this approach has led us to create spirits that taste different than the other bottles on the shelves.” That is the working logic behind the distillery: recipes are built from repeated tasting, and difference is treated as a result of process, not a marketing pose. In Brooklyn, the work is grounded in repetition, adjustment, and a clear refusal to let tradition do the thinking for the maker.

Signature

Brad's signature wines include Glorious Gin, 77 Whiskey, 77 Local Rye & Corn Whiskey, and Breuckelen Gin.

In Their Words “We follow our taste buds in crafting our recipes. Rather than sticking to tradition, this approach has led us to create spirits that taste different than the other bottles on the shelves.”

Recognition

Among the spirits most closely tied to Brad Estabrooke’s work, 77 Local Rye & Corn Whiskey is notable as a New York-made expression with a mash bill of 90% rye and 10% corn. The composition is stated without ornament: grain bill, place, name. In that clarity, the whiskey shows how the distillery communicates through ingredients rather than through inherited language. For a maker whose path runs from Bentley University to the 2010 founding of Breuckelen Distilling Company, recognition comes through specificity. In 77 Local Rye & Corn Whiskey, the method is visible in the mash bill, and the identity is carried by the grains themselves.