If you're reading this, you've scrolled past twenty other bottles claiming "hand-crafted" on the label. Welcome to the point where the filter turns off and the specs begin. We know that moment. You're staring at the "American Brick" bottle, admiring the fancy bevels, and wondering if this liquid is actually worth your hard-earned cash. Most "craft" whiskey is designed to look good, not taste good. Our ultimate quality control test is the one that happens in your glass, not on Instagram. The bourbon world is heavy on stories about "grandpappy's secret recipe" found in a dusty attic. The truth is simpler: Forget the founder's name. Their lineage is the limestone water of this specific county, and that's the only family secret they're willing to share.
Today, we are digging into the actual humans behind the bottle: Crowell Spirits’ master distillers. Spoiler alert: they aren’t chemists, they aren’t 200-year-old ghosts, and they definitely aren’t taking themselves as seriously as that guy at your local bar who treats a $40 bottle like a $150 investment.
So, who exactly decided that the world needed more brown liquor? Meet Brian and Kevin Crowell, the father-son duo behind Crowell Spirits and the American Brick Bourbon brand.
Let’s skip the candlelight and sit down in the production room. We’re going to use the whiteboard to diagram how this stuff is made. For generations, the Crowell family ran J.B. Crowell & Son in Ulster County, NY. They weren’t making whiskey; they were making brick moulds. Yes, moulds for bricks. It’s about as blue-collar and unglamorous as it gets. They helped build New York City, quite literally, one brick at a time. But let’s face it, wooden brick moulds are a niche market that probably peaked around 1910.
Faced with a changing world where people apparently don’t need artisanal wooden brick moulds as much as they used to, Brian and Kevin needed a pivot. The best pivot, when you have a historic factory and a thirst for legacy (and maybe just a thirst)? Whiskey.
The legend goes, and try not to roll your eyes too hard, because this one is actually kind of cool, that rumors circulated about a still hidden beneath their factory floorboards. Turns out, the ancestors were running a prohibition-era hooch business for the factory workers and local farmers.
So, Brian and Kevin aren’t just random guys who bought a distillery kit on Amazon. They are reviving a very specific, slightly illegal family tradition. They aren’t Master Distillers because they went to a fancy European distilling school where they learned to identify notes of “wet cardboard” in a spirit. They are founders who looked at their family history, saw a gap in the market for honest, hard-working bourbon, and decided to fill it. They are less “lab coat scientists” and more “let’s build something that doesn’t suck” enthusiasts.
Alright, let’s talk about why the juice tastes good, without boring you to tears with fermentation charts. The Crowell Spirits distillers take a unique approach that sets them apart from the Kentucky giants.
Most distillers pick a lane: pot still (rich, oily, heavy) or column still (clean, efficient, lighter). Brian and Kevin, apparently unable to make a simple decision, chose both. They use a custom setup called “column to pot to column” distilling.
It’s exactly what it sounds like. They couple the deep, funky flavor profiles you get from a pot still with the crispness of a column still. Then, just to be extra, they double-pass distill it. This ensures the product is pure but keeps the flavor intact. It’s like cooking a steak: you sear it for the crust but roast it to keep it juicy. They are doing the bourbon equivalent of that.
The Crowells stick to a traditional four-grain recipe. It’s a mix of 60% corn, 9% rye, 20% wheat, and 11% malted barley.
Why should you care? Because most bourbons are either high-rye (spicy) or wheated (sweet). This four-grain mash bill is the Goldilocks zone. It’s complex enough to make you think, but balanced enough that you don’t need a PhD to enjoy it.
They use water from a limestone aquifer deep beneath the family property. If you know anything about Kentucky bourbon, you know limestone water is the holy grail because it filters out iron and adds minerals. The Crowells have that same magic dirt-water right there in New York. It’s nature’s Brita filter, and it makes a huge difference in the final mouthfeel.
Look, you can buy bourbon made by a giant conglomerate that treats whiskey like industrial solvent, or you can buy from guys like Brian and Kevin. The Crowell Spirits distillers bring a “working man’s luxury” vibe to the table. They aren’t trying to sell you a lifestyle of yachts and cigars; they are selling you a bottle that looks like a brick because their family made bricks. It’s honest. It’s direct. It’s painfully New York.
Their bottle design even features a screw-shaped stopper, mirroring the precision products their factory used to make. It’s these little details that show they actually care, rather than just slapping a label on some sourced juice and calling it a day.
Now, we could bore you with tasting notes that sound like bad poetry. Let’s skip the part where we tell you it has “notes of leather, dark cherry, and a hint of crème brûlée” (which, fine, it does). But let’s be real: your palate is different from ours. You might taste “burnt sugar,” and your buddy might taste “grandma’s attic.”
Flavor is subjective, and trusting a random blog post (even one as excellent as this) is a gamble. This is where OAKR comes in to save you from bad buying decisions.
OAKR is the best bourbon sommelier app on the market, period. Instead of relying on flowery marketing descriptions, OAKR aggregates tasting data from actual blind tasting panelists. It does the heavy lifting for you. You can see visual flavor profiles before you buy, so you know if that bottle of American Brick is going to hit the sweet spot or if it’s going to be too spicy for your delicate sensibilities.
Everyone has a unique tasting experience. Crowell Spirits’ distillers have crafted a complex spirit, but OAKR helps you figure out if that complexity matches your personal taste preferences. Don’t just guess, download the app, explore the flavor profile, and get personalized recommendations.
Brian and Kevin Crowell aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel; they are just trying to make sure the wheel tastes really, really good. They are leaning into their family history, using a smart hybrid distillation process, and producing a four-grain bourbon that stands out in a crowded market.
If you want a spirit with character, made by people who actually have character (and a sarcastic sense of humor about their brick-moulding past), give American Brick a shot. And if you’re still on the fence, check OAKR to see exactly what you’re getting into.
Login to OAKR for spirit profile flavor data, create your own lists and customize your palate to get custom somm recommendations on whiskey you’ll love.
