I got into cooking when I was a kid. Instead of playing video games, I was making a mess in the kitchen. I got my first job at an Italian restaurant when I was 14. I went on to study culinary arts for two years, then to Oklahoma State University and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas to get a degree in hospitality management. I was a food and beverage manager for 3 casinos before getting married and moving to Oregon for graduate school, where I wrote a thesis on mead, learned to make wine and beer and to distill, and served with AmeriCorps as a youth volunteer coordinator. I tried to start my own winemaking venture out of grad school, but I was 23, a small bank account, and unconnected. So, my wife and I decided to go on a different adventure. We moved overseas.
First, I worked at a brewpub in Guatemala before we traveled the rest of Central America. We then headed to China to work as international teachers at an American school. I taught third grade before becoming an assistant principal, and ultimately the head principal. I also served the US Embassy as a consular warden. All told, we spent 7 years abroad and traveled to over 50 countries.
We decided to move back to Oklahoma. After a month of being back, I found a location in July 2017 to start a distillery in Tulsa, and by December, we’d released Tulsa’s first commercial spirit since 1920. Very quickly afterwards we started Oklahoma’s first cidery, Local Cider, as well as launched Angry Bear Mead. In 2020, we launched a second distillery and brewery with a brewpub in Oklahoma City. In Tulsa, we’ve added a taqueria to our cidery / meadery / winery / brewery taproom, as well as started Zoey Wine. My wife is set to open Gambill’s, a retail forward coffee shop and bar at the Shops at Mother Road Market in late spring and Dos Gringos Taco Park in Norman.
Many hands have taken part in building this, but we’ve remained proudly and completely independent with the only current investors being my wife and me. While I am really proud of my contributions, there are so many others that have been instrumental in building this.
-Hunter Stone Gambill
