A Charlotte Distillery Is Making Some of the Most Interesting Finished Whiskey in America Right Now
There are distilleries that burst onto the scene with a lot of noise and little to back it up. And then there are operations like Oaklore Distilling Co. out of Charlotte, North Carolina — a brand that has quietly, deliberately built something real. Since launching in 2024, Oaklore has developed a following that most whiskey producers spend a decade trying to earn. This spring, the distillery is adding two new expressions to its Story Series lineup, and both are exactly the kind of releases that remind serious drinkers why limited bourbon still gets people excited.
The two new bottles — the Story Series: Old Fashioned Finished Four Grain Bourbon and the Story Series: Port Cask Finished Four Grain Bourbon — share the same foundation but arrive at completely different destinations. That's the point.
The Foundation: Six Years and Four Grains
Before getting into the finishes, it helps to understand what Oaklore is working with underneath. Both new expressions start with the distillery's four-grain mash bill — corn, rye, wheat, and malted barley — sourced from select barrels at Oaklore's sister distilleries in North Carolina and Kentucky. The base whiskey is aged a minimum of six years before anything else happens to it.
That's not a throwaway detail. A six-year minimum on bourbon that's also going to spend another year or more in a finishing cask means the liquid coming out the other end has genuine depth to stand on. Co-Founder Thomas Bogan oversees production, and the process reflects a philosophy that finishing shouldn't be a shortcut — it should be the final chapter of a longer story.
After the initial aging, select barrels are batched, re-barreled, and then aged an additional 12 to 18 months before the finishing process even begins. So when Oaklore talks about patience, they're not speaking in marketing language. The timeline backs it up.
Old Fashioned Finished: A Cocktail in a Bottle
The first of the two releases, the Story Series: Old Fashioned Finished Four Grain Bourbon, goes in a direction that could easily sound gimmicky in the wrong hands. The barrels used for this finish previously held Oaklore's own Old Fashioned Cocktail Mixer — and the whiskey rests in those barrels for an additional 18 months.
The result, according to the distillery, is a profile built around orange bitters, snickerdoodle, vanilla, and warming spice. At 98 proof, it has enough structure to carry those flavors without tipping into sweetness overload. The connection to the classic cocktail is there, but it reads as a bourbon first — the Old Fashioned influence serves as texture and complexity rather than flavoring.
This is a harder trick to pull off than it sounds. Plenty of cocktail-inspired finishes end up muddled or one-dimensional. The 18-month finishing window on a whiskey that's already well-aged gives the liquid time to actually integrate rather than just absorb surface-level character from the cask.
It retails for $89.95 — the higher of the two price points, and not unreasonable given the longer finishing period and the proof point.
Port Cask Finished: Old Wood, Dark Fruit, and Restraint
The second release takes a more traditional finishing route, though the specifics here are worth paying attention to. The Story Series: Port Cask Finished Four Grain Bourbon rests in domestic port wine barrels — but these aren't just any port barrels. The casks previously held port for up to 18 years before being used for the bourbon finish.
That's a significant amount of previous use, and it matters. Port barrels that have held wine for nearly two decades have deeply saturated staves, which tends to produce a more integrated, less aggressive fruit character in the finished whiskey compared to what you'd get from a barrel with a shorter port history. The bourbon spends 12 to 18 months in those barrels and comes out at 92 proof.
The tasting notes run toward dark fruit — cherry, raspberry, sweet oak — flavors that complement the underlying four-grain structure without overwhelming it. At $79.95, it's the more accessible of the two bottles, and for drinkers who appreciate a well-executed fruit-forward finish without excess sweetness, it's likely to be the easier daily pour.
What Makes Oaklore Different
The Story Series releases don't exist in a vacuum. They come from a distillery that has been doing the work — literally — since 2017, when Co-Founders Matt Simpkins, Thomas Bogan, and Travis Masters started developing what would become Oaklore's approach to craft spirits. The brand didn't officially launch until 2024, which means those early years were spent learning, refining, and building the foundation before any bottles hit shelves.
That background shows. The Charlotte Observer named Oaklore the number one distillery in the area in both 2023 and 2024 — recognition that came before the national whiskey community fully caught on. The brand's reputation for small-batch, high-quality releases has already generated the kind of collector demand that most distilleries only dream about at this stage.
Co-Founder Matt Simpkins described the approach plainly: "These releases represent everything Oaklore stands for — patience, creativity, and a deep respect for the craft. Each finishing process was chosen to tell a different story while letting the underlying bourbon shine."
That last part — letting the bourbon shine — is worth sitting with. There's a real temptation in the finishing game to let the cask do all the talking. Oaklore's choice to start with well-aged, four-grain bourbon and then spend additional time in thoughtfully selected casks reflects a sequencing that prioritizes the whiskey's identity over the novelty of the finish.
Limited Distribution and How to Get a Bottle
Both expressions are available now in limited quantities. Physical retail distribution is concentrated in the Carolinas, but Oaklore ships nationally through its website, which has been the primary access point for collectors and enthusiasts outside the region.
The distillery is also currently offering a free bottle of its Barrel-Aged Old Fashioned Cocktail Mixer — the same product whose barrels were used to finish the Old Fashioned expression — with all orders placed through the website while supplies last. For anyone curious about the flavor connection between the mixer and the finished bourbon, that's a rare opportunity to taste both sides of the story.
Given Oaklore's track record with sellouts on previous limited releases, neither bottle is likely to sit on shelves for long.
A Brand Worth Following
What's happening at Oaklore is the kind of trajectory that tends to look inevitable in hindsight but is actually the product of years of unglamorous groundwork. The distillery has carved out a specific lane — cask-finished, small-batch, story-driven releases — and is executing on it with a level of consistency that's earning serious attention in American whiskey circles.
The Story Series Old Fashioned Finished and Port Cask Finished expressions aren't just strong seasonal releases. They're further proof that Oaklore isn't a flash in the pan. The Charlotte operation has built something worth paying attention to, and these two bottles are as good a starting point as any for drinkers who haven't caught up yet.
For more information and to order, visit oakloredistilling.com.
