Featured at World Whisky Day 2021: Wood Hat Spirits was founded in 2012 by Gary Hinegardner. It is so named from one of Gary’s non-distilling hobbies: carving wooden hats. When not carving a wide variety of those hats, Gary and his team are creating bourbons and whiskies made using Missouri sources, from the wooden barrels to the grains using the only wood-fired still in the United States. While the offerings explore a wide variety of corn varietals, the creativity can also be seen in finishes. The Wood Hat Twin Timbers begins as their Rubenesque bourbon made of blue corn that is at least two years old, but then finished in charred pecan barrels, providing both oak and pecan to have voice in the whiskey.
Distillery: Wood Hat Spirits
Region: Foreign
Age: NAS
Strength: 45%
Price: $39.99
Maturation: Pecan wood barrels
Barrel: Batch 13
Location: New Florence, MO
Nose: Char, latex, burned marshmallow, caramel, corn, hazelnut
Palate: Wood, pecan shell, sweet corn, char, chocolate
Finish: Wood, corn
Comments: While not essential, a drop of water opens up the flavor elements a little. Mostly sold in 375ml bottles.
Adam – I don’t naturally gravitate to corn as the grain for my whiskies, but I am a sucker for creativity and the Twin Timbers scratches that particular itch. There is a fascinating character to the nose, an element assumedly provided by time with pecan that is not just bourbon. Nuttiness and a heightened sweetness, very alluring. Unwatered, the front of the palate is very sweet with corn. For me, the youth makes the taste on the palate bite a little more than I’d prefer but it is not too distracting. The corn is very present on the tongue but not in a super corny way, with a rich richness from the nose translating into something almost reminiscent of chocolate. With a larger sip, wood begins to dominate the back palate into the finish but does not completely shunt aside the sweetness. While there is not any smoke here, there is a very light char on both the nose and the palate that helps balance the elements. What a fascinating whiskey. Well worth exploring for both bourbon aficionados and those just in search of a unique whiskey period.
Kate – I like the taste much better than the nose.
A Venn diagram of nut, wood and corn.
Henry – The Twin Timbers is like a three-legged stool: nuttiness, corn, and wood.
Bill – The color is fruitwood. This whiskey reminds me of that color. On the palate, a mix of chocolate. A chocolate tone, an unsweetened cocoa. A Venn diagram of nut, wood and corn.
Ben – It smells like a fresh can of shoe polish, or making Christmas candy at home. Like peanut brittle. The taste pauses initially, where you can feel it but can’t taste it immediately. It’s very dry and a fun experience.
