Tennessee’s Old Dominick Distillery has released two new whiskeys – and they’re hitting shelves in their northern neighbor Kentucky.
The distillery’s Huling Station line, named for the warehouse that aged the first-ever Old Dominick label whiskey, is already home to a high-rye straight bourbon. Now, the distillery will be adding a wheat whiskey as well as a blend of the two whiskeys.
“Huling Station from Old Dominick is about balancing tradition with innovation- the highest rye content bourbon on the market, now a wheat whiskey, and a blend of the two,” says Alex Castle, Master Distiller and Senior Vice President of Old Dominick Distillery.
Huling Station Straight Wheat Whiskey will have a mash bill of 83% Wheat, 12% Corn, and 5% Malted Barley. (Just as bourbon whiskey must have above 50% corn in the mash bill and rye whiskey must have above 50% rye grain, wheat whiskey must have above 50% wheat.) It’s bottled at 90 proof and the distillery tells us to look for notes of “light, sweet honey, and delicate grassy indication” on the nose, and a palate with “a hay-forward lightness with hints of the same pale honey featured in the nose, bookended by a surprising flash of smoked oak before settling into a medium, lightly sweet finish.”
“We knew we wanted Old Dominick to have a well-rounded whiskey portfolio, so it made sense to us to develop a wheat whiskey in addition to our Huling Station high-rye bourbon. The first few years of aging were a bit nerve-wracking for me because wheat whiskey seems to age slower and it wasn’t progressing at the same rate as our bourbon; however, after the winter of 2018, the wheat turned a big corner and suddenly we had a very pleasant, flavorful whiskey,” says Castle in a press release. “For me, this product is a great introductory whiskey, it has a much lighter flavor and is bottled at a lower proof than the Huling Station Straight Bourbon, so it is more approachable.”
Huling Station Blend of Straight Whiskeys will be 50% the wheat whiskey above blended with 50% Huling Station Straight Bourbon (52% corn, 44% rye, 4% malted barley). It’s bottled at 90 proof and we’re told features “a slight wisp of warm baking spices on the nose, complemented by a hint of smoky oak. The palate offers up a creamy, warmed honey sweetness with short bursts of a pleasant grassy note that tapers into a rye warmth to go with its slightly higher proof. The finish is lingering and peppery with another appearance by the smoked oak to close it out.”
“While we see whiskeys that are a blend of bourbon and rye whiskey, there isn’t a whiskey that combines bourbon with wheat whiskey,” according to Castle, who calls the blend “unique.”
“Huling Station Blend has the best of both worlds – the rye spice of the bourbon and the light grassy notes of the wheat whiskey,” she explains.
And for the first time, these Old Dominick bottles will be for sale on shelves in Castle’s home state. Castle, who was recently elected President of the Tennessee Distillers Guild, began her career at Kentucky’s Wild Turkey Distillery after receiving her degree in chemical engineering from the University of Kentucky.
“I can’t imagine being in any other industry,” she says of her new office. “I hope that my roles within Old Dominick and the Guild can serve as inspiration to other women; just because an industry was male-dominated for years doesn’t mean it can’t be welcoming to women, and even promote those women to leadership roles.”
Look for Old Dominick Straight Wheat Whiskey and Blend of Straight Whiskeys on shelves now in limited quantities for around $50 in Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.
