There is a point during barrel tasting when Donnis Todd gets very quiet.

He is not a particularly noisy man to begin with, but when Donnis finds something interesting, he gets still. He rolls the bourbon around in his glass. Smells it again. Takes another sip. Sometimes he walks away and comes back to it. Then he makes a mark.

That mark can mean a lot of things. On this particular day, it meant: Don’t let this one get away.

Donnis was tasting through the barrels that would become our Ranch Reserve PX and Oloroso Sherry Cask Finished Bourbons. The job was to find barrels that belonged together—bourbons whose flavors could be married into a release with balance, depth, and a clear point of view.

Most of the barrels found their place.

Then there were the oddballs.

The troublemakers.

The barrels that refused to fall in line.

I want to be clear about something. “Oddball” is a compliment when Donnis says it. These were not barrels that fell short. They were barrels that stood apart. Each had developed a personality so distinctive that marrying it into the larger release would have quieted the very qualities that made it special.

So Donnis did what Donnis does. He pulled them aside.

Fourteen PX barrels. Thirteen Oloroso barrels. Twenty-seven individual expressions of the same original idea, each one destined to be bottled on its own, at its own natural proof.

What Happened to the Other Barrels

Earlier this year, we introduced Ranch Reserve PX and Oloroso. They were the first two releases in a collection built around the meeting of our bold Texas bourbon with remarkable finishing casks from around the world.

PX and Oloroso both come from the sherry country of southern Spain, but they have very different dispositions.

Pedro Ximénez—or PX, for those of us who prefer drinking it to spelling it—is dark, rich, and decadent. The grapes are dried beneath the Spanish sun, concentrating their sugars and flavors before they become sherry. Put our bourbon into one of those casks and you begin finding chocolate, toffee, caramel, candied fruit, raisins, and figs.

Oloroso takes a drier road. It is aged oxidatively, developing the walnut, dried fig, baking spice, and savory structure that make it such a fascinating partner for bourbon. PX comes toward you with its arms open. Oloroso makes you lean in and pay attention.

For the Ranch Reserve releases, Donnis selected and married barrels to express those two distinct profiles. People seemed to understand what he was after. Both expressions sold out at the distillery within a week.

For most folks, that appeared to be the end of the PX and Oloroso story.

Donnis knew better.

He still had 27 troublemakers waiting in Hye.

Eight Years and One Barrel at a Time

These single barrels came from the same original production lot as Ranch Reserve PX and Oloroso. They began with our wheated bourbon mash bill: 74% Panhandle white corn, 15% soft red winter wheat, and 11% two-row malted barley.

Each bourbon spent four years in new American oak beneath the Texas sun. Then it spent another four years in a first-fill PX or Oloroso sherry cask.

That is eight years of wood, whiskey, weather, and waiting.

On paper, the barrels had plenty in common. Same mash bill. Same distillery. Same maturation plan. Same Texas climate. Same type of finishing cask within each group.

Bourbon, however, has never shown much respect for paper.

Every barrel is its own small world. Wood is a natural material. No two trees grow exactly alike, and no two casks interact with whiskey in precisely the same way. Add eight years of Texas heat, cold snaps, evaporation, expansion, contraction, and pure cussedness, and barrels that began together can arrive at remarkably different destinations.

That variation is exactly what Donnis looks for when he selects a single barrel.

Most barrels are chosen for what they can contribute to a marriage. Every so often, one has no interest in becoming part of the crowd.

That is when Donnis makes his mark.

Nothing Added to Make Them Agree

The 14 PX barrels range from 122 to 135.2 proof. The 13 Oloroso barrels range from 124.6 to 136.7 proof.

Those numbers are not targets we assigned. They are where the barrels finished.

Every barrel will be bottled separately, uncut and unfiltered at its natural cask strength. The bourbon is also non-chill filtered. We are not adding water to bring these bottles to a common proof, and we are not marrying barrels together to create a standardized flavor.

Each bottle will identify the barrel and the proof of the whiskey inside it. Bottles from one barrel will share that barrel’s character. Move to another barrel—even one finished in the same kind of sherry cask—and you may find something noticeably different.

That is the pleasure of this release.

One PX barrel may lean heavily into chocolate and caramel. Another may push the dried fruit forward. One Oloroso barrel may be all walnut, oak, and baking spice. Another may reveal more fig, texture, or savory depth.

We are not publishing a separate set of tasting notes for every barrel. I would rather let each one introduce itself.

Don’t Just Chase the Biggest Number

I know how some of you people think.

You will study the labels, find the highest proof in the building, and make a beeline for it like you have spotted the last brisket at a church picnic.

I understand the instinct. We make Cowboy Bourbon, after all. We are hardly afraid of proof around here.

But the highest proof is not automatically the best barrel. Proof tells you where that barrel finished. It does not tell you which barrel you will love.

A 122-proof PX may be every bit as compelling as one at 135.2. A lower-proof Oloroso may show a balance and texture that speaks more clearly to you than the barrel with the biggest number on its label.

These are not trophies in a proof-measuring contest. They are 27 individual drinking experiences.

Choose the finish that interests you. Look at the barrel number. Look at the proof. Then pour it, give it time in the glass, and pay attention to what it tells you.

Taste the Trouble Side by Side

When we released Ranch Reserve, Donnis wanted people to taste PX and Oloroso together. Same Garrison Brothers bourbon. Same Texas DNA. Two different sherry traditions pulling the whiskey in different directions.

These single barrels take that comparison further.

Taste a PX beside an Oloroso and you can explore the contrast between richness and structure, sweetness and dryness, dark fruit and savory spice.

If you are fortunate enough to find bottles from two barrels bearing the same finish, taste those beside each other too. That may be the more revealing experiment.

Same mash bill. Same maturation schedule. Same kind of finishing cask. Two barrels with two different opinions about how the story should end.

Add a few drops of water if you like. Let the bourbon rest. Return to it after 10 or 15 minutes. See what opens. See what changes. These whiskeys were bottled at full strength so you can decide how you want to experience them.

That is what a great single barrel offers. It is not merely rare. It is unrepeated.

Twenty-Seven Barrels. One Chance.

We will release the Garrison Brothers PX Finished Cask Strength Single Barrels and Oloroso Finished Cask Strength Single Barrels at the distillery in Hye on Saturday, October 17. The release begins at 8 a.m.

Each bottle will be $179, with a limit of four bottles per guest so more folks have an opportunity to take one home. One thousand bottles will be available at the distillery, with additional bottles heading to select retailers nationwide.

The bottles will wear our Single Barrel packaging, not the Ranch Reserve bottle. Each will have a special front label in the respective PX or Oloroso color, silver wax, and a touch of that expression’s color at the tip.

We will bottle approximately 3,000 PX and 3,000 Oloroso bottles in total.

That may sound like a fair amount of bourbon until you remember that each barrel contains only a few hundred bottles. Once a particular barrel is gone, it is gone. There will never be another PX Barrel 9 at 135.2 proof. There will never be another Oloroso Barrel 6 at 136.7.

We can find more excellent sherry casks. We can fill more barrels. We can wait another eight years.

What we cannot do is recreate the precise path taken by any one of these 27 barrels.

Donnis saved them because they did not fit neatly into the profile. Because they had something different to say. Because some barrels are not meant to agree.

Some are meant to stand alone.

Come meet the oddballs.

Salud!

Dan Garrison