A Milwaukee Finance Professional Has Found Bliss In His Boozy Cookies
D'Araun Brown is the founder of Whiskey Brown Whiskey Spiked Cookies. In front of him (left to right) are the Big Friendly Giant, which is a gluten-free monster cookie made with Great Lakes Distillery Kinnickinnic Whiskey and Chardonnay wine; Salted Caramel Peanut Butter, which is made with Skrewball Whiskey, and Whiskey and Toffee, which is made with Uncle Nearest.
A Milwaukee finance professional started one of the country's only boozy cookie companies.
Every single cookie in the Whiskey Brown collection starts with a boozy base.
D'Araun Brown had always been a baker in his spare time, but his whiskey-laden cookies took off once he realized he was the face of his burgeoning cookie company, Whiskey Brown.
'That's when everything changed,' says Brown.
Brown's journey as a whiskey baker was both serendipitous and almost a step back in time.
As a freshman in high school, he was inspired to start a cookie making business after he saw a girl who appeared on David Letterman's late night show to promote her own cookie business. So, he started his own cookie making business, which he did until he went to college where he majored in finance, eventually working as an expert in mergers and acquisitions.
Brown kept baking, and as an adult, one night, he did an experiment. 'I was baking a batch of cookies one night, and I was drinking a glass of whiskey at the same time,' he says. 'I wondered what would happen if I added the glass of whiskey to the batter.'
Brown added the whiskey to the batter, then added toffee and caramel to match the aromas of the whiskey. 'I realized it was a good cookie, and I called that one Hemingway,' he says. 'I knew I was on to something different, something good.'
Brown kept working in finance, but the seed of a baking business took root. Then, with some help from friends in the food business, in 2015, Brown started Crumbles Confectionary, but the whiskey-spiked cookie company started growing into something something bigger in 2019. Things started getting even more serious in 2020 when he realized his brand was 'Whiskey Brown.' 'It all changed when I realized I was Whiskey Brown,' he says. 'That's when we rebranded.'
The name came after he worked with his friends, and they worked up a list of 20 names. 'Everyone loved the name Whiskey Brown,' Brown says. 'My friends helped me realized that it wasn't just a brand - that I was the brand, and Whiskey Brown could be bigger than what I thought it could be.'
'Everyone loved the name Whiskey Brown,' Brown says. 'My friends helped me realized that it wasn't just a brand - that I was the brand, and Whiskey Brown could be bigger than what I thought it could be.'
Originally, though, he wasn't in love with the name - he preferred Crumbles Confectionary. 'That name was my first baby, but it didn't speak to what we did, that we are the whiskey spiked cookie company,' he says. 'Once I realized how much the name resonated with other people, and once I realized I was Whiskey Brown, things changed.'
Today, people can find his cookies online, but as soon as his new packaging is implemented, it will be back on the shelves at Outpost Natural Foods, Fresh Thyme, and several other locations. His cookies retail for $35 per dozen online, and by early 2026, they will be expanding nation-wide in stores.
Whiskey Brown's whiskey and toffee and smoked chocolate banana cookies are made with Uncle Nearest 1884 Whiskey, which enhances the flavors of the toffee and the banana and chocolate
Brown bakes 40 different flavors of cookies, and each cookie contains at least two types of alcohol in them. Hemingway, for example, contains two different types of whiskey. Dark Matter is a salted bourbon caramel chocolate cookie contains bourbon, chocolate stout beer, rum and creme de cacao. His salted caramel peanut butter features bourbon and peanut butter whiskey.
'When you use more than one type of alcohol, it layers the complexity of the cookies,' Brown says. 'When the alcohol bakes off, you're left with the flavor profiles of each spirit. Depending on the flavors and spices, it will hit your palate differently. For example, Dark Matter contains cayenne, but you don't taste it while you're eating the cookie. It hits your palate after you're done.'
Brown also can make each of his cookies gluten-free by special order, but he also regularly makes a signature gluten-free cookie, The Big Friendly Giant, which has bourbon, whiskey, and chardonnay, along with kettle chips, movie theater popcorn, M & M's, peanut butter, peanut butter cups, caramel and toffee. 'You can't even tell it's a gluten-free cookie,' Brown, says.
Brown also hosts a Whiskey with a Buddy podcast with his friend, Buddy Robinson, which addresses complex themes in a conversational and convivial atmosphere while drinking whiskey and eating cookies, as each episode features a cookie and whiskey pairing that they try. 'The premise is a show about nothing and everything,' Brown says, adding that their diverse backgrounds inform their conversations. 'We're a middle aged black guy and a middle aged white guy, and we come from different backgrounds. It's a genuine conversation.'
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