The Breeze: Bridget Firtle and Owney’s Noble Experiment
Bridget Firtle tells us why she left a cushy job on Wall St. to start Owney’s Noble Experiment and make handcrafted rum in NYC.
Bridget Firtle
Bridget Firtle started out in the world of finance but after some words of wisdom from a professor she decided to take a “shot” at pursuing her dreams of becoming a distiller of spirits. Her company is called “The Noble experiment”, a distillery she founded in 2012, aiming to resurrect the pre-Prohibition Era days of distilling in the US by bringing the timeless tradition back to NYC, as part of a revival of small-batch spirit-making in Brooklyn encouraging those to “Drink Local”. Her first liquor is Owney’s NYC Rum, a white unaged rum named after Owney Madden, a Prohibition-era mobster and bootlegger who owned the Cotton Club.
By introducing a rum into a borough that has welcomed new gins and lightly aged whiskeys, Ms. Firtle, a former financial analyst, has quickly made a name for herself. In addition to articles in New York magazine, Edible Brooklyn and a slew of blogs, she was included in Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30” list for food and wine. She is about that start-up life, wearing the hat of distiller, operations manager, sales person, marketing guru, social media manager and accountant.
Owney’s
There is no need for me to write anything other than it was delicious. it’s different from other rums i have tasted as it’s not to sweet, but it goes down pretty easy. Bridget went deep into the process making it pretty evident that she knows her shit. The website is interactive and is a great tool to learn about the process and story behind Owney’s. If you are in Brooklyn, take a tour at The Noble Experiment.