Garrison Brothers Balmorhea Bourbon Whiskey

Situated on a rolling ranch in Texas Hill Country, Garrison Brothers Distillery was founded in 2005. The distillery is the oldest legal whiskey distillery in Texas. "Like everything in the Lone Star State, our dreams were big from the start," says Dan Garrison, the distillery's owner. "We didn't want to make just any bourbon, we wanted to make the best bourbon ever made."

Garrison Brothers Texas Straight Bourbon Whiskey is made from organic corn, wheat, and barley. "We get about 30,000 pounds of corn, wheat and barley delivered a month," says Garrison. "The wheat comes from our own fields — we have 65 acres of wheat on the other side of the property." In addition, the corn is harvested from local fields in Texas while the barley is sourced from the Pacific Northwest.

Once the grains arrive at the distillery, they are milled and mashed before being fermented for four days. Following fermentation, the wash is distilled through an antique, copper pot still nicknamed the copper cowgirl. "She was made as an experimental still," says Garrison, "for Wild Turkey Distillery." After the bourbon has been distilled, it is aged in charred, American oak barrels. "The char softens the wood and allows the bourbon to expand into the wood. When it gets hot — and it gets hot out here in Texas — that bourbon will soak deep into the wood and extract the chemical compounds that are in there."

Balmorhea is the latest release from Garrison Brothers, named after an iconic West Texas park. $5 for the sale of each bottle goes towards renovating the spring-fed pool situated nearly 40 miles south of Pecos, Texas. This magnificent Texas Straight Bourbon Whiskey is bold but majestically-crafted, having been aged four years in new American white oak barrels, then transferred to a second new American white oak barrel, and aged for one year. Simply put, Balmorhea is bourbon candy in a bottle.