Widow Jane sits in a converted industrial building in Red Hook that has housed, over the years, a parachute factory and a bean-to-bar chocolate operation. Since 2012, it has been producing bourbon and rye in Brooklyn, proofing every bottle with limestone mineral water drawn from the Widow Jane Mine in Rosendale, New York - the same region that supplied the natural cement used to build the Brooklyn Bridge. That detail is not just marketing: the mineral content gives the whiskey a distinctive softness that you can taste against the corn-forward sweetness of their proprietary Baby Jane Heirloom grain. Their flagship 10 Year Bourbon won World's Best Small Batch Bourbon at the 2022 World Whiskies Awards, and the portfolio stretches into experimental territory with wood-finished ryes, long-aged blends, and seasonal releases. When you visit, you can take a guided production tour, pick up bottles from the shop, or settle into Botanica - the distillery bar next door - for cocktails on Friday through Sunday afternoons. The whole operation is five blocks from the Red Hook ferry, which makes for a reasonable excuse to spend an afternoon in one of Brooklyn's more quietly industrial corners.