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.
Smoke Wagon
Scotchology, as the name might imply, focuses primarily on scotch with a healthy interest in other world whiskies. One realm we generally stay away from is bourbon. This is not because we think lesser of the quintessentially American spirit, but rather because it is its own realm in many ways, and scotch provides us with plenty of pathways. Sometimes, however, it is nice to take a small deviation. Smoke Wagon is a high rye bourbon from Nevada Distilling, This small batch offering was first released in 2016 and is a mix of younger, more vibrant rye and older, more complex bourbon. The spirits themselves are from spirits producer MGP, as actually distilling in the heat of Nevada can result in high loss due to evaporation.
Berkshire Mountain New England Corn Whiskey
Berkshire Mountain Distillers was founded in 2007 and has been producing a large variety of gins, vodkas, rums and other spirits ever since. As many craft distilleries have done across the United States, BMD have looked to the markets and resources around them to help guide their creative process. The New England Corn Whiskey is made from area farms within miles of the distillery, aged using cherry wood and white oak. We note with interest the term “aged over” as opposed to “aged in” and wonder if barrels are used in the aging of this spirit.