HOUSTON -- There are just a few distilleries producing liquor locally. In north Houston, there is one that does it all by hand, from grain to bottle.
At BJ Hooker's Vodka, all of that attention to detail is now paying off.
Brothers Wade and Stuart Jones started making vodka a few years ago after learning how to do it on Google. They named their product after their dad, B.J., with whom they also like to fish, thus the name BJ Hooker.
“It sounds like a nostalgic, funny catchy name," Wade Jones said.
Their Houston vodka is catching on statewide. They make it with wheat.
“We grind it down, turn it into a nice flour and we boil it for a certain amount of time to get all the sugars out of it," Wade Jones said.
Theirs is a grain to bottle operation. Everything is done on site by hand.
“We do everything ourselves, because we care about our product a lot,” Wade Jones said. “We don’t want our father’s name out there with a bad product.”
“A lot of people like it. A lot of people show up for tastings and tours," Stuart Jones added.
Actually, making liquor is in the Jones boys’ blood.
“My great grandfather and his brother were moonshining in Florida, and they were selling to a naval base over there,” Stuart Jones said. “And then they, I guess, they moved the operation to Texas when they got into a little bit of trouble down there.”
Great-granddad was on the run, but his great-grandsons are on a roll. They may soon branch out to bourbon.
“I mean, this is something that we see possibly our kids running, our grandkids," said marketing director Ryan Sovelius.
For information on tours and tastings, visit the distillery’s website.