ben holladay
rickhouse proof

“Lots of folks in town for the tournament.”

I scan the hotel lobby, silent and still, no signs of a tiny stopover town being descended upon by greater-than-usual throngs from other places. Bryant and I had already been waiting a few anticipatory minutes for her to station herself at the desk, so I wasn’t inclined to deliver the canticle about the last time I was in Elk City—anxious, weary, and against my will as an alien winter storm pummeled Oklahoma.

“What kind of tournament?” It was a compromise.

“Baseball.” I don’t know anything about the sport, but knew that back in Arizona, some of the teams were training.

“Spring training or something?”

“No. Local tournament.” It was the alchemy of her contradictory answers, and the sheer amount of traveling from the days prior—Albuquerque, Durango, Oklahoma City, Bentonville, Fort Smith, weaving in and out of the cities and traversing endless hypnotic highways—that had me giving in and feigning understanding. I nodded and closed off until I was handed our room keys.

We had come from The Stag in Oklahoma City, having parked on an inconspicuous side street with more dark liquor in the bed of the truck than was on display at the bar. By that point we’d run out of room in the crew cab and made a utility stop earlier that morning for an additional cooler and ratchet straps. It wasn’t the most elegant solution, but it was practical and didn’t delay our onward travel.

There was no parking in line of sight of The Stag’s windows, but we figured we could check on the cargo during smoke breaks, a line of logic that was summarily dismantled once we got in and realized we had stepped through a dimensional  rift in time where smoking was allowed indoors, immediately apparent by the buzz of second hand smoke on the nostrils.

“Could you tell me the batch number on that Elijah Craig barrel proof bottle?” The bartender fumbles a bit and I gesture her toward the bottle.

“C-”

Say it.

“Nine-”

Say it.

“C923.”

Score. Bryant and I both ended up with a pour in our glasses. A delightfully drunk woman tried to explain her recent travel troubles in a way that logistically made sense to neither of us. She notices when Bryant tried to suppress a belch, but couldn’t suppress his cobra stance. A different bartender shows us pictures of his art installations from Burning Man.

“Birmingham looks wild,” Bryant says.

“Burning Man.” I enunciated over the din of the bar.

The original intent was to continue on the rest of the way to Albuquerque, already a tall order having come from Bentonville earlier that morning. The euphoria of the bar took over. It would be prone to happen anywhere we could smoke like chimneys and the glasses stay filled.

After some light discussion about staying in Oklahoma City for the night, Bryant says, “Elk City?” Just like the billboard with the half-baked face on the way through the day prior—Elk City? OK? Probably the best?

Confirmation with the bartender is how we ended up there, making the critical decision to smoke in the truck to escape blustery night time wind. A bottle of Ben Holladay happened to be in the cab with us, so that’s what ended up in our glasses in the front seats with the heat on low and windows cracked.

Sometimes the right thing is in the right place to ultimately make everything right—”Truck bourbon” on a windy night in Elk City, Oklahoma. Contemplative conversation and Orville Peck. The subtle apex of brotherhood.

Ben Holladay Rickhouse Proof is distilled in Weston, Missouri. This particular batch was distilled in the fall of 2016 and bottled at 120.1 proof on August 18, 2023 making it a 6-year age-stated straight bourbon whiskey. The distiller’s journal shows this batch coming from their “Warehouse C.”

Nose While there is a cohesive classic bourbon profile on the nose—oak, caramel cream, vanilla—the exciting thing is that these are underscored by a very unique candy cinnamon note, like cinnamon chewing gum. There is maybe a hint of an earthy, grassy funk and also some very faint whispers of citrus, but it’s genuinely difficult to pay attention to anything beyond the wild cinnamon.

Palate Much of the nose translates into the palate, especially the novel cinnamon note which takes center stage on the mid-palate. On the front, it translates a bit into a pleasant peppery sting. Classic bourbon comes through from the nose, but is much more tannic on the tongue than the aroma would suggest.

Finish The finish seems to be where the grassy funk shines. It’s an earthiness that I find most often in bourbons and ryes distilled in the northeastern US, but this time it is developed nicely to provide a long, satisfying finish. There is a bit of heat, but not extraordinarily more than the proof would suggest.