FOUNDERS' STORY

TWO TEXANS SET OUT TO BUILD THE FIRST LEGAL WHISKEY DISTILLERY IN TEXAS.

He Lost Everything

In 2003, Dan Garrison’s career in software marketing went up in flames. The company he worked for went bankrupt overnight. His job was eliminated, and stock options went belly up. Dan was left with an uncertain future standing before him and his family.

After returning to Texas, he was flipping through a local newspaper and noticed yet another vodka distillery opening in the state. “Why doesn’t someone make something that tastes good, like bourbon?” he asked his wife, Nancy. She agreed and suggested he start a distillery—bourbon was his go-to spirit of choice anyway. She jokingly mentioned that it would likely offset the cost of what he was spending in buying whiskey.

He Didn't Want To Make Just Any Bourbon

He wanted to make the best bourbon ever made. There was just one problem: Dan knew nothing about distilling bourbon. Curiosity in tow, he set out to Kentucky; touring bourbon distilleries, sampling bourbons and speaking to distillers to learn about the history of the spirit. Fortunately, he met master distillers who were willing to share their secrets. In exchange for their help, Dan would send them cases of Texas’ world-famous Salt Lick Barbecue.

In 2006, Dan and Nancy founded Garrison Brothers. Using borrowed funds from reluctant, but curious-enough family and friends, they opened an experimental barn on their small ranch in the Texas Hill Country. There, Dan had the finest raw materials on the planet right at his fingertips: Texas grain, Texas rainwater and of course, that fickle Texas weather.

The Spirit Evaporated, But His Never Did

It’s no secret that Texas gets scorchingly hot, but to put things in perspective, four relentless Texas summers is equivalent to twenty mild Kentucky summers. This is great news for bourbon drinkers because it means more delicious bourbon in fewer years, but in the experimental years of Dan’s bourbon making, this meant seemingly endless failure. Barrels exploded in the heat. Bourbon evaporated, losing hundreds of gallons. He even ran out of money on four separate occasions. It took him well over 60 tries to get the perfect blend of wheat, barley and corn and countless attempts to get the yeast strain just right. In fact, Dan’s first batch of sweet mash bill produced nothing more than sweet cornbread.

He worked tirelessly; nights, weekends, holidays, and any chance he got, sometimes sleeping on the floor of the stillhouse so he could get right back to work in the morning. His family and friends told him to give up and try making something easier like vodka. But Dan persisted. And when he finally tasted his first batch in 2007, he knew his stubbornness and willpower had forged something to change the industry forever.

The Rest Is History

Dan dealt with years of exploded barrels, financial ruin and failure after failure before uncorking his first test batch in 2007. The result was outstanding; the nectar yielding flavors even the finest, rarest bourbons in the world have never come close to. It was this batch that fueled his fire to grow the distillery and use bourbon to change the world.

Nancy, the queen bee of bourbon, has been Dan’s partner in all of it. After 15 years as president of Scarbroughs, her family’s Austin department stores, she brought a lifetime of retail, sales and marketing to the distillery. She hosts bourbon dinners across the country, works with our sales and marketing teams, and inspired some of our most beloved bourbons: HoneyDew, Lady Bird and Sonora. In August 2026 she became Co-CEO, continuing her partnership with Dan. Meet Nancy.

Dan’s good work goes far beyond bourbon, as he has also founded The Trail Foundation in Austin, the Texas Distilled Spirits Association, the American Craft Spirits Association, The Hye Preservation Society, and, with Nancy, the nonprofit Good Bourbon for a Good Cause. Together, they continue to make the finest bourbon on the planet and witness the good that their bottles do for the world.