Methods for heteroarylethyl alcohol synthesis are critical to the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Herein, we report a mild, modular, practical Minisci reaction for catalytic synthesis of heteroarylethyl alcohols via sequential addition of H₂O and N-heteroarenes across olefinic double bonds. This scalable protocol was used for direct hydroxy-heteroarylation of olefins with a wide range of N-heteroarenes and can be expected to permit rapid conversion of abundant feedstock materials into medically relevant molecules.