I have been with my family on vacation in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. It is a magnificent vacation spot – a beautiful lake with blueish green water, the oldest mountains in North America, beautiful forests where we have seen many deer and rabbits scampering around. Lots of fun things to do – zip lining, trail riding, a magic show, eclectic shops, and great restaurants. When my wife Catherine picked this spot I didn’t know anything about it, but when she said there was a distillery there, I was sold. It was a four and a half hour drive from my home in Alexandria, Louisiana, and with a stop at Naaman’s Barbecue in Texarkana, the only place I have had pork ribs with smoke rings, it was a nice trip up. Interestingly, Broken Bow now has their own Naaman’s location now (its second) and a Greatful Head Pizza restaurant which they also have in Hot Springs, another one of my favorite vacation spots. Our favorite restaurant while on the trip was Pressa Italia. The Charcuterie Boards were amazing, the pasta made in house and delicious, the pizzas were brick oven cooked and top drawer. Not what I expected in southwestern Oklahoma, but there it was; its modern takes on Italian food were delicious in a nice atmosphere. Next door was a locally owned chocolaterie, Loblolly Chocolates, which had bourbon infused fudge and truffles with bourbon from Hotchatown Distilling Company. I tried the bourbon infused Truffles before I tried the bourbon itself. I think it is very cool that the local chocolate maker is using the local bourbon for their products.

Hochatown Distilling Company (HDC) was started ten years ago. Hochatown itself is a town just north of Broken Bow, and we are staying just north of that, although the mailing addresses are all Broken Bow. Hochatown was originally located where Broken Bow lake is now, and the town was effectively moved when the dam was built to create the lake in the 1930’s. HDC was founded by some bourbon lovers who also love southwestern Oklahoma, so much that they decided to invest in the distillery. There is an old joke about how do you turn a large fortune into a small one – start a distillery. Hopefully these guys had large enough fortunes that they could wait for their investment to mature, as you have to do with bourbon.

HDC’s tried and true mashbill for their main line of bourbons is 80% corn, 10% rye, 10% barley. Their line of bourbons include Small Batch at 90 proof, Small Batch Select at 104 proof, Bottled in Bond at 100 proof, and Single Barrel at 120 proof. They also do some specialty bourbons, including Mean Green Reserve at 100 proof with a wheated bourbon mashbill which supports the University of North Texas athletics, and Loyal and True, which is a high rye (30%) bourbon dedicated to OSU athletics. I did a tour and tasting with my son in law Bryan, my step son Jack and his fiancee Hannah.

The tour experience was great. I would call it a Kentucky type distillery experience on a smaller scale, given that the distillation room also has their fermentation tanks in the same room, and the barrel house that is part of the tour is just behind it. Their equipment was fashioned by Vendome, and is a top quality rig. Their barrels are purchased from two different artisan vendors in the Ozarks in Missouri, and not General Stave, and I like the idea of artisan distillers supporting artisan barrel makers. Their products are now in 41 states, and they are about to add another still to hopefully increase their capacity to 100 barrels a month. Like many small distilleries, vodka is what pays the bills, so much of the still time that would otherwise be used for bourbon is used for vodka. By getting a dedicated vodka still (which honestly doesn’t have to be as good or expensive as the bourbon still to make good vodka), the bourbon barreling capacity will increase.

But the best part of the tour was co-master distiller Rod Davis. A retired high school principal and coach, he was very knowledgeable about bourbon, but also amazingly funny and friendly. I don’t think I have smiled or laughed so much on a bourbon tour as this one. He’s definitely a guy to enjoy some bourbon with; he has great and funny stories of his interactions with so many people across his life. He first learned distilling when making moonshine with his father; the area has a history of moonshine making, but the real question is how will that white dog age in this environment.

I tried all of their main line bourbons, and my two favorites were the Bottled in Bond and Single Barrel. I also tried the Mean Green Reserve, because I wanted to try their wheated bourbon. I ended up buying a bottle of Single Barrel, a bottle of Mean Green Reserve, a Glencairn (because I like to collect Glencairns from whiskey producers I visit with their logos on them), and a t-shirt that says “Bourbon noun. /berben/ Magic brown water for fun people.” with HDC’s logo on the back.

HDC’s Mean Green Reserve came about when the University of North Texas athletics department came to HDC and spent a week drinking bourbon with Rod, and on the last day of their visit, told Rod they wanted a wheated bourbon like Weller. Rod was like, why didn’t you say that the first day? So HDC created a wheated bourbon. This is a 100 proof four year old bourbon, with 10% wheat in the mashbill and costs $75. The color is a nice solid amber which is a little darker than normal for its age. On the nose, there is some citrus fruit and some nice baked bread notes. On the palate, it has all of the wonderful cinnamon roll notes one would expect on a wheated bourbon. Despite its young age, it does not have any youthful bitterness. On the finish, baking spice and clove dominate on a very long fade. While most wheated bourbons need a good bit of age on them, and I am not saying more age wouldn’t make this bourbon better, it is a very good wheated bourbon. Considering how hard it is to get Weller Special Reserve, much less 107, which this closely mimics, HDC ought to think about adding this to their regular lineup once their capacity increases.

HDC’s Single Barrel Bourbon at 120 proof is 5 proof less than their barrel entry point, using their 80/10/10 mashbill. This barrel was aged 45 months, just shy of four years. While this bottle costs $106, I get that the cost per bottle for a smaller distillery is higher, and, as discussed below, HDC gives up a greater share of its whiskey to the angels, and I bought one having tried it. The color on this is much darker than Mean Green Reserve, deem amber with lots of mahogany. The color is impressive given its age. On the nose is a ton of caramel, some vanilla, some nice oak, and a hint of honeysuckle. On the palate is a ton of vanilla, caramel, baking spice, and hints of dark fruit. On the finish, the baking spice turns to clove but the vanilla flavors linger on and on, with a hint of Peychaud bitters in the background. What is most impressive is the amount of flavor there despite its young age. Their small batch had some youthful bitterness which I think only happened because they added water. But the only bitterness on their single barrel is the hint of cocktail bitters on the finish.

Because this a full post and not just tasting notes, I decided to take a deep dive into why HDC’s bourbon tastes like it does at such a young age. They are using non-GMO ingredients, have a great artisan distillery setup, and using great number 3 charred oak barrels. But a lot of producers use the same things. So, we have to look at the climate in which the barrels are aging. Doing some research and comparing the climates of Broken Bow, Oklahoma, and Eastern Kentucky, this whiskey is aging in a hotter, dryer, environment. The aggressive extraction cycle in the barrel due to this environment will rapidly pull compounds from the wood, leading to strong, upfront notes of vanilla (from vanillin), deep caramel and toffee (from caramelized hemicellulose), and a pronounced spicy, dry character from the heavy tannin extraction. The spirit achieves a darker, more saturated amber color much more quickly and develop a richer, thicker mouthfeel at an earlier stage, as it spends more time in the wood with shorter winter breaks than Kentucky, but they are real breaks with cold and snow that allow the barrels to exhale and allow the flavors to coalesce. Also, because of the mountains, the water in Hochatown is limestone filtered which means it has low iron content, making it ideal for whiskey making. I would never have guessed before going to HDC that the terroir of South Eastern Oklahoma would be so great for making bourbon so flavorful so quickly. But it is.

I really enjoyed my time with my family in Broken Bow and Hochatown, and having a solid distillery experience with this quality of whiskey near a great vacation spot made it all the better. I highly recommend their whiskey and their tour. For my friends in Central Louisiana, this is a true vacation gem that is very easy to get to with many things to enjoy, including the local bourbon and chocolate.