Whiskey business

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Media Contact: Stephen Howard | Manager of Communications, Spears School of Business | 405-744-4363 | stephen.howard@okstate.edu

Herman Marshall Whiskey, the first distillery of handcrafted small-batch whiskey in Dallas County since prohibition, has been enjoyed by Texans for over a decade. It’s getting a new jolt of energy under Spears School of Business finance and MBA graduate Ryan Hamar.

Hamar is the CEO of Dry County Distilleries, which bought the renowned Herman Marshall brand from the founder and master distiller, Herman Beckley, in 2021. Alongside his partner Clint Ecord, Hamar and Dry County Distilleries took the original Herman Marshall recipes and gave them an updated identity and a new homebase in Wylie, Texas.

Herman Marshall’s bourbon won a silver medal and scored a 93 out of 100 at the 2013 American Distilling Institute’s spirits competition, and they were once voted the “Best Small Batch Bourbon” at the International Whiskey Competition (IWC). They followed it up with a third-place finish in that category at the IWC in 2015.

With those bourbon chops and Hamar’s plan, they’re hoping to grow their footprint. If they succeed, you might start seeing Herman Marshall on store shelves in Oklahoma and even on the OSU campus soon. The Spears Business marketing team sat down with him to ask a few questions.

What was it about Herman Marshall that made you want to get into the whiskey business?
To use a marketing term, Herman Marshall is an established startup. That sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, but the whiskey itself has been on the shelves for 10 years. But now, we come in and do a little rebranding and re-introduce the product. That’s one of the things that makes it so interesting from the business, finance, nerdy side of things.

But the best part is that we got to maintain the relationship with the “O.G.” of Texas bourbon, Herman Beckley. When he started Herman Marshall they were the fourth distillery in Texas and the first one in Dallas County. Herman is still very much involved in what we’re doing while living in Laguna Beach, California. We fly him back to be a part of finishing runs and even marketing the whiskey. He’s like a kid again. It’s to the point where we’ve had to open up distribution in Orange County so that he can go out and sell and market the bottles with his name on the label in Laguna Beach. 

Also, when you look at the spirits industry, unless we have another prohibition, it’s only going to continue to grow. We felt like that if we are able to build the right experience with Herman Marshall that there was something in the alcohol industry that we could take advantage of.

After the acquisition you said you hoped to bring a jolt to Herman Marshall. A year into the project how do you feel about that goal?
We officially bought Herman Marshall in November. There was a lot of work in between, but we finally got the product out to market in Texas in June. We sent out 2,000 cases with our first shipments, and we’ve easily doubled those shipment amounts every single month to restaurants and liquor stores since then. We just got the biggest liquor store chain in the state, Specs, turned on three weeks ago. That took a little bit of time to get that 800-pound gorilla, but we’ve got it now.

We’ve also been working on construction for our new distillery and we will move in October. That building should be ready for the public in the spring. The new place will take us from a 300-gallon still to a 2,200-gallon still, so ramping production up while maintaining the quality will be our next mission.

Once we get the building up and going this project will go to another level. It will take us to 20,000 square feet under roof with an expanded tasting room, an outdoor entertainment area and we plan on having space for food trucks. The goal is to become an attraction on the Texas whiskey trail.

The word “bourbon” is so often associated with Kentucky, but that wall is being torn down now. Are we seeing a bourbon renaissance in Texas right now?
[wearing a smirk and holding up a t-shirt that says “Yes, Texas makes bourbon.”] When you start talking about bourbon a lot of people say that if it’s not from Kentucky then it’s not bourbon. That’s a big misconception that we are trying to fight alongside other bourbon fans here in Texas. We’re just trying to show people what we have here while also trying to beat the narrative that only Kentucky can make good bourbon. When people try our bourbon alongside the others they say, ‘we really like this.’

There are advantages here in Texas, too. Some people say that when you put an oak barrel in a warehouse here in Texas versus a barrel in a warehouse in Kentucky it will age the whiskey almost twice as fast in Texas. A 2-year [aging process] here is going to look like a 4-year in Kentucky just because of the temperature swings that we get in this state. The wood of that barrel is contracting and expanding with the temperature swings, and it ages the product so much faster here. That’s one of advantages that we have.

It's a blast to travel outside the state and tell people that we’re from Texas and we make a great bourbon, but we take a lot of pride in where we’re from. I’ve met the farmers up in Denton that grow our corn. My kids have ridden on their combine while they were harvesting. Blaze with Maverick Malt House up near Amarillo grows all of our barley and rye. So we know who is making everything that goes into our product, which makes our bourbon special and local. It’s truly a product of Texas. The guys in Kentucky have been around a long time and their stuff is good. But there’s enough bourbon for everyone.

Is the rumor true that the OSU community might might be getting a taste of Herman Marshall soon?
We are working on a Karsten Creek private label right now, actually. I came up to the course to play in a charity golf tournament and met with Ross [Langendorfer], the food and beverage manager at Karsten Creek. He tried our stuff and he really liked it, but he had reservations because it’s from Texas. I assured him of my Oklahoma State roots and told him that I was actually born in Stillwater, and he said, ‘that changes everything.’

So, Karsten Creek is going to have our bourbon and our rye, but they’re also going to have a private label that is going have orange wax on the top and it’s going to say “Karsten Creek’s bourbon” on the label. It’s going to be really cool. We’re at the point of making sure we all like the flavor and taste at the proof we wanted it.

We would love to be the bourbon version of what Iron Monk Brewery has done as the official craft brew of OSU. We would also love to expand further into Oklahoma. So, I’m meeting with folks all over the state to try and make that happen. I’ve been indoctrinated into the Oklahoma State culture since I was born because both of my parents went there. I would love nothing more than to be up in the club and suites of Boone Pickens Stadium and see my bourbon on the shelves, but I’d be even more proud to have Pistol Pete on the label.

Any pieces of advice for the next generation of Spears Business grads?
There are going to be moments where you’re going to be afraid or nervous. But don’t be afraid to bet on yourself. Just get out there and go. That’s been the biggest thing for my partner and myself that we’ve learned through this whole process. We’re betting on ourselves to get this project up and running.

The other piece of advice I’d mention is that you don’t have to know everything. That’s the hardest thing, because we often want to put on a front that shows that we know it all, especially when you’re young. But get to a point in your career where you know it’s OK to seek out an expert to help you learn more. I’ve had the benefit of having great mentors that taught me that there’s a time to learn things on your own and a time to ask questions. You’re expected to bust your butt and try your best, but be smart about it.