If you want the complete sugary pecan experience , pair the liqueur with some of Aunt Bill ’ s brown candy . Mason ’ s mother surprised them with this homemade convection for the grand opening .
“ … WHEN I STARTED THINKING ABOUT STARTING THIS BUSINESS AND WHERE DO WE WANT TO LIVE ? … IT WAS HERE ( STILLWATER ).”
— ALLYSON JONES was ( on the ) West Coast , … and so we thought now ’ s a good time to jump in ,” Mason said .
Allyson ’ s education was a natural fit for running a distillery . “ I studied food process engineering at OSU , so this is definitely right in my wheelhouse , and this is fascinating ,” she said .
“ From the get-go , we decided on a rum / rumbased liqueur line , and we ’ re going to have a whiskey line . So whiskey is obviously not something you can get out right away because it has to sit in a barrel . So then that makes our first release having to be from that rum line ,” Jason said .
Territory Distilling doesn ’ t take any shortcuts to keep to the spirit of craft products . If they can legally make the ingredients in-house , they will . “ I kind of wanted to stress that we made the rum , we fermented and distilled the rum , which is not always the case ,” Jason said .
“ So we ’ ll bring in 50-pound sacks of sugar , and we ’ ve got 50-pound bushel bags of grain for our first whiskey that we ’ re trialing out right now . We do as much as we possibly can ourselves ,” Allyson said .
Like many OSU graduates , career opportunities often call them to the metros , but for Allyson , Stillwater is where her heart is .
“ This is where we met . We both went to OSU , and we have always loved it here . When I graduated college , I worked in Tulsa full-time , and I lived here because I just couldn ’ t let go . When we got married , we moved to Tulsa . And when I started thinking about starting this business and where do we want to live ? Of course , it was here .”
STORY & PHOTOS BY Chris Peters chris @ stillwaternewspress . com
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STILLWATER OKLAHOMA MAGAZINE