Wiltwyck Spirits Turns an Auto Garage into a New Tasting Room in Kingston

In a former mechanic shop the intersection of Greenkill and Wilbur avenues in Kingston, the new Wiltwyck Spirits Company has staked out a visible corner lot (with ample off-street parking), serving up cocktails made with New York State spirits.

The brand, which is a collaboration between distiller Kyran Tompkins and Jonathan Niles, was founded in 2022, but the tasting room just opened at the end of February.

“This is my 13th year in the industry,” says Tompkins, who started out as a hobby homebrewer then transitioned from there into winemaking.. After a stint in Charlottesville, Virginia, he moved back to the Hudson Valley in 2013. thinking he’d break into the local winemaking industry. Instead, he found a distilling job at Tuthilltown Spirits. “It was an opportune time—the industry was growing very quickly,” Tompkins says. “Openings were a little easier to come by. I showed aptitude, and I was able to advance pretty quickly into being a distiller.”

From there, Tompkins’s resume filled in. He became chief distiller at Denning’s Point in 2015; production manager for Captain Lawrence’s sister company Current Spirits in 2019. Then, in 2022, he simultaneously co-founded Wiltwyck Spirits and took on the role of Chief Distiller at the new West Park distillery destination Hudson House.

The timing is more than coincidence; Wiltwyck and Hudson House share production space under a rare “alternating proprietorship” agreement. “It has worked out fantastically well,” Tompkins says. “It’s very unusual, but working together, we benefit each other.” As far as products go, a deliberate non-overlap has Hudson House specializing in bourbons and ryes, while Wiltwyck is known for its Karnavat vodka. To that, Tompkins adds, “Our primary focus is not on the distillation, which is why we’re Wiltwyck Spirits not Distillery, in that there is a lot more that goes into a bottle of vodka than the distilling.”

In the case of Karnavat, the vodka is made with 100 percent New York-grown corn (a requirement for the farm distillery license), distilled to 192 proof, then filtered through activated carbon and cut to 80 proof with ice rather than water for a crisper taste. And finally, at the Greenkill Avenue tasting room, which opened late February, the vodka is used in cocktails, alongside spirits from other New York distilleries.

The bar’s two signature cocktails are made with prebatched mixers produced onsite. “We put all the juices, syrups, everything except the alcohol, in a keg, and put the keg on a draft system,” Tompkins says. “Then when you pour, you also add water or any spirit, shake it or stir it, and serve. It looks and tastes just like any other cocktail.”

While that last bit might sound simple, it’s harder than you think. Tompkins harnesses years of production experience to ensure the prebatched mixes maintain their flavor, texture, and color integrity in the keg, which is no simple task with acidic ingredients like fresh lemon or lime juice. With the prebatched mixes, all customers can choose whether they want a cocktail or a mocktail (diluted with water), all made from the same base. And if you like what you’re drinking, you can order a bottle which is poured and corked just for you to bring home, containing about five cocktails.

The Nothing Lasts blends vodka, acid-adjusted orange juice, house grenadine, while the Real American Pie uses vodka with spiced apple juice, served with a brown sugar and graham cracker-garnished rim. Both are $12. The partners also aim to launch a line of canned vodka sodas by summer. In the meantime, you can try those sodas at the tasting room (lemonade and blueberry) by the glass or bottle.

Beyond just the convenience of this system, it plays to partners’ strengths. “Jonathan is new to the industry, and I’m much more of a distiller, so me being a bartender behind the bar might be a disaster for everyone,” Tompinks says with a laugh. “Cocktails can be very complex with a lot of depth and character. This way, we can focus on interacting with customers a lot more rather than memorizing cocktail spec sheets.”

That said, as the partners brainstormed throughout the buildout project, they ultimately decided to bring on a mixologist, who developed a traditional cocktail list and bartends onsite at the tasting room. The succinct non-batched drink list includes adventurous cocktails like the Kore Falls, made with gin, vodka, grenadine, and mole bitters ($14); the 3, 2, 1 Draw!, made with whiskey, coffee liqueur, mint, and cinnamon, plus orange and mole bitters ($17); or the Valentino, with vodka, bitter orange liqueur, and sweet vermouth ($15).

As a farm distillery tasting room, Wiltwyck is allowed to serve other New York State spirits, and the list of available products reads very much like a tour of Tompkins resume with rye and bourbon from Hudson House and gin from Denning’s Point. “It’s perhaps unusual [to feature other distillers],” Tompinks says. “But as an individual, I participated in a very large portion of making or developing the spirits available at bar.”

The tasting room itself was designed by the duo with input from friends and family. It features plenty of verdant accents, including a green ceiling and plenty of plants. The bar is shaped like a question mark to encourage socializing between patrons. “We were made aware that a straight, linear bar is not the best way for people to be social,” Tompkins explains. “Anyone sitting at bar can talk to anyone else, which is great in this day and age as we have a loss of these third spaces over the years.”

Given the tight footprint of the former auto garage, there is no kitchen onsite, but Wiltwyck partners with Lyons Savory Selections, a mobile food vendor who serves a variety of dishes from salads to taco bowls and a house favorite: “Italian nachos” made with homemade potato chips.

Outdoor seating on the patio makes for a relaxed, communal vibe, and food trucks are in the works for summer. It’s still early days. “We’re doing this out-of-pocket, so our marketing budget is very minimal,” Tompkins says. “It’s all word of mouth, but the feedback has been fantastic. Kingston is an amazing place for local community and local support.”