By Lauren Mechling
Photography by John Gruen
Silver Brothers Distillery is not named for Smokey and Gilly, the gorgeous distillery cats who are brothers and share the same smoke-colored coat. Owners Matt Greitzer and Kimberly Driessen Greitzer named their nose-to-tumbler startup after their sons, whose initials are A and G, the elemental symbol for silver.
“We were just sort of using it as a working name when we started, and then it stuck around,” says Kimberly, looking like a heroine in a Wyeth painting, the wind whipping her hair as she gazes out at a field that’s almost ready for harvest. The family bought the 220-acre Chatham, New York, farm in 2020 and have been working on making whiskey ever since. At last, they’re open for visitors who’d like to see how an old sheep farm has become home to barrels, cauldrons, and casks, and silos brimming with golden grains that will transform into Empire Rye Whiskey or their newly released American Single Malt Whiskey.
Matt grew up in nearby Spencertown, and the college sweethearts always wanted to build something rooted locally. “We wanted to find a product that could grow really well here without a lot of intervention,” Kim says. “We realized the answer was grain, rye in particular.”
Matt runs an advertising technology firm and lives for data. Kim is a graphic designer, and saw to it that the tasting room would be destination-worthy. Interior designers Whitley Esteban and Ernesto Gloria oversaw the area’s Shaker-toned, hunting-lodge feel (the Old Chatham Hunt Club uses the space as a pre-fox hunting and beagling meet-up point). Bow Glassworks designed amethyst tumblers, and artist Millie von Platen’s rendering of the farm adorns the paper lining of the bottle boxes. Don’t peer inside the box if you don’t want to buy a bottle—once you see the illustration, game over.
