Free Spirits: Dime Best of Brooklyn Fest Adds Whiskey Samples

This beer festival is a whiskey business!

The Dime Best of Brooklyn beer and food festival, coming to Industry City on January 26, has added bourbon, rye and Scotch to the menu. Visitors to the festival will be able to sample refreshing mixed drinks from Bulleit whiskey and from Johnnie Walker — adding out-of-state tastes to the celebration of the borough’s best.

Bulleit plans to pour its “B.L.T.” cocktail, made with Bulleit whiskey, lemon juice and tonic water, along with tastings of its bourbon, rye and 10-year barrel-aged varieties. Scottish whiskey producer Johnnie Walker plans to offer Scotch and sodas made with both its Red and Black brands.

The two spirit sponsors will join eight Brooklyn brewers pouring unlimited samples into souvenir glasses, including Williamsburg’s Brooklyn Brewery, Bushwick’s Braven Brewing, Caribbean-inspired Island To Island from Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Red Hook’s Sixpoint, Coney Island Brewing, Sunset Park’s Five Boroughs Brewing Company, Greenpoint’s War Flag Brewing and Kombrewcha, which makes an alcoholic version of the fermented tea drink kombucha.

To soak up the boozy beverages, the festival will feature more than two dozen local restaurants and chefs, each nominated in one of the Dime Best of Brooklyn food categories. Barbecue restaurants will be well represented, with reps from Dinosaur BBQ Brooklyn, Barbecue on a Stick, and Memphis Seoul BBQ dishing up their tender meat, along with pretzel purveyor Knot of This World, pizza spot Table 87, and Haitian catering company Taste Buds Required, among many other food vendors.

The festival will feature three two-hour sessions, starting at 12:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. — but those who spring for the “early admission” ticket can get an extra 30-minute head start on the hoi polloi. Well-heeled patrons with livers of steel can also go for the $99 all-day pass, which will allow them to skip the lines and go in and out of the festival any time between noon and 9 p.m.

Dime Best of Brooklyn Food and Beer Festival, Industry City, 220 36th Street, between 2nd and 3rd avenues in Sunset Park, (718) 224–5863. January 26 at 12:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Tickets $39 ($49 early admission, $99 all-day access, $19 designated drivers).