Food & Drink

Mean spirits

If Moiz Ali and Steven Abt had an easier time finding small-batch bourbon while studying at Harvard Law, they might still be working as corporate attorneys.

Instead, the pair have turned their attention from legal matters to liquid assets. Ten months ago, they founded Caskers, a Web-based booze business that offers a rotating inventory of craft spirits culled from the skyrocketing number of small regional distillers in the US and beyond.

“We’re focused on the small guys who are making everything by hand,” says Abt, noting that with limited distribution, many of these products are out of reach for the average drinker.

For booze lovers, the site serves as both a pipeline to such distillers and as a buyer’s guide, pointing drinkers toward top-notch tipples they may never have heard of, from Dad’s Hat Rye Whiskey of Bristol, Pa., to 44˚North Mountain Huckleberry Vodka of Rigby, Idaho.

Over the last four years, some 2,500 new spirits have been launched, according to Ali, leaving even the most informed imbibers overwhelmed by choice.

“We knew there needed to be someone out there who said, ‘OK, here’s what’s really good,’ ” says the 28-year-old Union Square resident. “There are a lot of people who do it for wine, but there was no one doing it for craft spirits.”

Caskers’ growing number of customers seem to agree. More than 27,000 (20 percent in New York) have signed up for a free subscription.

The chance to “discover a lot of unique spirits that I normally wouldn’t find” drew Daniel Del Vecchio, 45, a New Jersey resident who works in the restaurant business, to sign up last June. His favorite finds include Seven Fathoms Rum — aged underwater in the Cayman Islands — and Rogue Dead Guy Whiskey, made using the beer brewer’s malts.

“You can’t just get things like that anywhere, so having it a couple clicks away is fantastic,” he says.

To introduce customers to such finds, Abt and Ali — who share desks in a co-working space off Canal Street — send out a daily e-mail highlighting a featured product. On the site itself, they give a rundown on each bottle, including not only tasting notes and information on ingredients and distillation methods, but also some back story on the maker.

A good story — like, say, the veteran Vermont beekeeper

who uses his own honey in Barr Hill vodka and gin — helps move product, notes Abt. A fetching bottle design has a big impact as well.

When they launched last June, their first offering — Balcones blue corn whiskey, from Waco, Texas — sold out immediately, and since then growth has been strong and steady. If first-quarter figures hold steady, Caskers expects to do $1.5 million in business this year, though with continued expansion they expect to do well over that.

“It’s grown much faster than we expected,” says Abt, who lives in Greenwich Village.

Dan Vallejo, who works for a branding firm, is another customer who’s signed up; he’s used Caskers to buy several bourbons both for himself and as gifts.

“It takes the legwork off my plate,” the 29-year-old Brooklyn Heights resident says. “They’re finding stuff I wouldn’t otherwise get my hands on.”

The startup has also found favor with the small distillers whose products it hawks, who started reaching out to Caskers the minute they launched.

“They’ve definitely become a household name in the craft spirits community,” says Steven DeAngelo of Brooklyn’s Greenhook Ginsmiths, whose American Dry gin and Beach Plum gin liqueur have both been featured. The latter “is a very niche product that’s not going to appeal to the masses, and they sold an impressive amount of it.”

Bourbons are the site’s best sellers, but there are gins, vodkas, scotches, mescals and rums, as well as wild-card choices, such as Otay Buckwheat Spirit from Catskill Distilling, or Hatter Royale Hopquila, made in Michigan from malted barley mash that’s steeped in hops.

The pair are currently hiring to keep up with their growth, but the tasting, which typically gets done on Friday afternoons, will remain their territory. And it’s no small job — their apartments are “overflowing” with bottles that need sampling, says Ali. A daunting task, perhaps, but not one that will send the pair running back to corporate law any time soon.

“Somebody had to do it,” says Abt. “Why not us?”

Caskers’ most sought-after libations

Barr Hill Vodka: Before turning his attention to making liquor, Todd Hardie of Caledonia Spirits spent nearly 50 years as a beekeeper in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, and he distills his vodka from raw, organic honey. He also makes a gin that’s “out of this world,” says Steven Abt. $59.99.

Breckenridge Bourbon: This bourbon whiskey made in the Rocky Mountain town of Breckenridge, Colo. — which is brought to proof using mineral-rich mountain snow melt — is Caskers’ best seller. “People just love it,” says Abt. $49.99.

Due North Rum: From the Van Brunt Stillhouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn, “it’s the first rum produced in New York since Prohibition,” says Abt. It’s distilled using organic sugar grown in the foothills of the Himalayas, and aged for four months in oak barrels. $44.95.

Rusty Blade Gin: One of the first barrel-aged gins produced in the US, it’s made outside San Francisco by a third-generation distiller who was raised in Croatia. The rosy-hued gin incorporates a brandy made with zinfandel grapes, and is aged for 15 months in wine-seasoned casks. $59.99.