The Sherry Casks Came a Long Way to Get to Hye

On certain mornings in Hye, the light comes in low and gold over the Hill Country and lands on the rickhouses in a way that makes even an old bourbon man stop and stare. The cedar trees look half asleep. The gravel crunches under your boots. Somewhere a screen door slaps shut. Somewhere else a bottle line starts clattering to life. And if the wind is right, you catch that smell that lives nowhere else on earth quite like it does here: sweet mash, wet grain, white oak, heat, and the kind of ambition that does not know when to leave well enough alone.

That is the setting for what we are doing on Saturday, June 27th out at the distillery in Hye, Texas. We are releasing two new bourbons under a new name that means something to me. Ranch Reserve. One is finished in Oloroso sherry casks. The other is finished in Pedro Ximénez sherry casks, which I will call PX because I am a bourbon maker, not a spelling bee champion.

I am excited about these bottles because they are flat-out delicious, but that is not the whole story. The whole story is that these bourbons come from a line of thinking that has been rolling around inside Garrison Brothers for a good long while. This did not begin as some marketing brainstorm scribbled on a cocktail napkin. It began years ago, when we started asking what might happen if our bold Texas bourbon got together with a finishing barrel that had its own story to tell. Back in 2018, that line of curiosity gave us Balmorhea, Estacado, and HoneyDew. Those were the first signs of life. Ranch Reserve is what that old Voodoo Labs spirit looks like after it has grown up, settled down just enough to be dangerous, and learned the value of keeping only the best of what it finds.   

A Name With a Little Dirt on It

I have always believed a name ought to pull its weight. It ought to mean something. It ought to sound like it belongs to the place it came from.

Ranch Reserve did that for me right away.

The ranch part is easy. We are in Hye, Texas, not lower Manhattan. There are more deer than people out here. More limestone than pavement. More hawks than traffic lights. This distillery was never meant to feel polished. It was meant to feel rooted. A little wild. Honest. Weathered by the land around it. Ranch Reserve sounds like something that could only come from here, and that matters to me because bourbon, at least the kind I care about, ought to taste like a place before it tastes like anything else.

Then there is reserve. That word matters just as much. It says these bottles were held back. Watched. Reconsidered. Tasted again. It says we did not release them just because they were interesting. We released them because our Master Distiller, Donnis Todd, decided they were worthy of the Garrison Brothers name. That is a high bar around here, and it ought to be. 

“I wanted a name that sounded like it had a little dust on it” said Dan Garrison. “Like Ronnie Van Zant’s (Lynyrd Skynyrd) reverential singing in the ballad of Curtis Loew. Ranch Reserve felt like Hye to me. It felt like a place, and it felt like something we had held back until it was ready to speak for itself.”

The Ghost of Voodoo Labs

A lot of good things at Garrison Brothers start the same way. Somebody gets curious. Somebody asks a question that would probably sound foolish in a boardroom but sounds perfectly sensible out here. Somebody says, “Well, what if we tried this?”

That was Voodoo Labs.

It was never a formal building with a sign over the door. It was more of a state of mind. It was the restless, mischievous, serious part of us that wanted to see how far bourbon could go without losing its soul. That spirit led us to some of the finished bourbons people still talk about today. Balmorhea, with all its richness and depth. Estacado, which carried its own weather system into the glass. HoneyDew, sweet and strange and wholly itself. Those were not accidents. They were the early sketches of what Ranch Reserve has now become.

The difference is that Ranch Reserve is more selective. Back in those earlier days, we were exploring the edges. Now we know more. We know finishing only works when the base bourbon has enough spine to take it. We know a barrel can add beauty or confusion. We know the finishing cask has to feel like a natural extension of the whiskey rather than a costume draped over it. That is what Donnis understands better than anybody. He is not looking for novelty. He is looking for harmony. 

Why Two Sherries, Why Now

This part was important to Donnis, and I think he was exactly right.

He did not want folks to taste one sherry-finished bourbon and go home with a vague idea about what that meant. He wanted them to taste the contrast. Side by side. Glass next to glass. Same distillery. Same Texas DNA. Two very different old-world influences.

That is the beauty of this release. It is not just a launch. It is a comparison. It is an education disguised as a damn good afternoon.

Both of these finishing traditions come out of the sherry world of southern Spain, from the region around Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa María, a place with a wine tradition that reaches back more than 3,000 years. But after that, the roads start to fork. Oloroso and Pedro Ximénez do not arrive at flavor by the same route, and they do not leave the same fingerprint on bourbon. 

Oloroso is the leaner, sterner one. It is a dry sherry aged oxidatively, which means it develops in contact with oxygen and grows darker, richer, nuttier, and more structured over time. Official descriptions of Oloroso talk about walnuts, figs, baking spices, texture, length. You hear those words and you can already begin to understand why Donnis was drawn to it. It does not flatter a whiskey. It fortifies it. 

Pedro Ximénez, by contrast, is lush and dark and almost indecently rich. It is made from grapes that are dried in the sun until they begin to shrivel and raisin, concentrating sugar, acidity, and flavor. The official tasting notes are a parade of raisins, figs, candied fruit, coffee, and chocolate. PX is not subtle in the shy sense. It is subtle in the orchestral sense. A lot is happening at once, but the music still hangs together. 

So when Donnis put Oloroso and PX side by side, what he was really doing was handing bourbon drinkers two maps of the same country and saying, “Look how different the roads are.”

“I wanted people to taste the casks against each other” said Donnis Todd. “Same Garrison Brothers bourbon. Same Texas sun. But Oloroso takes it one direction and PX takes it another. That’s the lesson and the fun of it.”

One Goes Savory, One Goes Dark

If you are new to these sherry names, do not let them spook you. Here is the plain Texas version.

The Oloroso finished bourbon is the one that walks into the room in a well-worn pair of boots and does not need to raise its voice. It leans savory. Walnut. Baking spices. Dried fig. A little dry. A little brooding. The sort of whiskey that makes you think of old wood, quiet rooms, and the last ten minutes of daylight.

The PX finished bourbon is a different kind of beautiful. It is darker, richer, and more decadent. Raisins. Figs. Toffee. More lushness in the middle. More of that long, lingering sweetness that makes you keep lifting the glass back to your nose even after you swore you were done.

Same Garrison Brothers backbone. Same Texas force of personality. But two very different translations of what a finishing cask can do. One pulls the whiskey toward structure and savor. The other pulls it toward richness and shadow.     

Hye Meets Jerez

One of the things I love most about bourbon is that it can carry a place with it. Our place is Hye. Hot wind. White limestone. Summer heat that seems intent on proving a point. That climate shapes our bourbon in ways you can taste. It makes the whiskey muscular. It gives it a spine. It leaves no room for anything timid.

What fascinates me about Ranch Reserve is that it lets our bourbon meet another place with a long memory and a strong personality. The sherry region of southern Spain is its own world, with old bodegas, oxidative aging, sun-dried grapes, and centuries of winemaking tradition behind every cask. That history is real. You can taste it. But what I love is that when those casks meet our bourbon, Texas still speaks first. The sherry does not erase Hye. It just adds another chapter to the story. 

“That’s what excites me.” said Dan Garrison. “These casks came a long way, and they brought a lot of history with them. But when they met our bourbon, Texas still had the last word.”

Why This Release Day Matters

Release days at Garrison Brothers have their own electricity. Anybody who has been here for Cowboy or Guadalupe knows what I mean. There is something about people driving out to Hye, standing in line with coffee in hand, swapping stories, peering toward the release line like kids waiting for Christmas, that reminds me bourbon is never just liquid in a bottle. It is anticipation. It is fellowship. It is a reason to gather.

That is what I hope June 27th becomes.

Not just a shopping day. Not just a get-it-before-it’s-gone day. A day when people can taste two sherry-finished bourbons side by side and understand why we chose to release them together. A day when folks who have loved Garrison Brothers for years can see how this new Ranch Reserve series grows naturally out of where we have been. A day when new drinkers can discover that finished bourbon, when it is done with care, is not a gimmick at all. It is a conversation between whiskey and wood, patience and instinct, Texas and somewhere far beyond Texas.

And let me tell you something. There is a particular pleasure in tasting something rare at the place it was born. The Redneck Maquiladora humming along. The Hill Country stretching out beyond the fence line. The knowledge that the liquid in your glass began here, under this sun, in this heat, and only later went looking for a Spanish accent. That matters. At least it matters to me.

Worthy, or It Stays in the Barrel

That last part may be the heart of all this.

Ranch Reserve only works if it stays honest. It cannot become a catchall for every shiny idea that wanders through the gate. It has to remain a home for the barrels that truly earn it. That is why this series matters to Donnis, and it is why it matters to me. The standard is not whether a finish is unusual. The standard is whether it deepens the bourbon in a way that feels true.

This time, the answer was yes. Twice.

So on Saturday, May 9, we will put both bottles on the table and let them make their case. Oloroso, with its savory depth and dry, elegant spine. PX, with its dark fruit, toffee, and rich, lingering sweetness. Two releases. One idea. One new name that I believe will mean more as time goes on.

And yes, if the right barrels come along in the future, stay tuned for future Ranch Reserve releases that Donnis has deemed worthy of the Garrison Brothers name. But first things first. Come to Hye. Taste these two. See what Donnis was after. See why I am so excited about them.

Then stand out there for a minute in the Hill Country light, with a little dust on your boots and a good bourbon in your hand, and tell me Ranch Reserve does not sound like exactly the right name.

Salud!

Dan Garrison