BOURBON BLOG
Out here the Hill Country keeps its own clock. Gates swing slow. Live oaks whisper when they feel like it. The wind rakes a rickhouse roof until it finds the right note. That is where this story started and where it kept circling back, barrel after barrel, summer after summer, until the whiskey finally said […]
There is a sound the Hill Country makes before dawn, a low hush that rolls across the pasture and slips through the oak trees like it is checking to see who is awake. You can stand outside the stillhouse and hear it. You can feel it, too, if you stand still long enough. It is […]
There’s a certain kind of treasure you only find in Texas. It isn’t always something you can hold in your hands. Sometimes it’s a place. Sometimes it’s a memory. Sometimes it’s a bottle of bourbon that carries a whole stretch of this state inside it. Over the years, we’ve made a lot of whiskey out […]
If you walked into one of those dinners this past August, you might’ve thought it was just another night out in Texas. The lights were low, the tables were set, and the air smelled like seared steak and oak-aged bourbon. But if you looked a little closer, listened past the laughter and the clinking glasses, […]
Every now and then, something comes along that reminds you how special this journey really is, and how proud you are of the people who share it with you. For me, that something is Sonora. Seven years in the making, Sonora is more than a bourbon. She’s a reflection of the rugged beauty of Texas, […]
Last Saturday, in the Hill Country heat, I stood at the gates of our distillery and looked out at a line of cars that stretched for what seemed like miles. They weren’t here for a concert, or a rodeo, or even for barbecue. They were here for a bottle of bourbon. Our bourbon. Laguna Madre. […]
The Hill Country of Texas has no need for a Chamber of Commerce— Mother Nature handles the sunrise and she’ll handle the brochures as well. Still, when the PBS Hidden Gems team rolled into Hye with a truckload of cameras and a host who’s logged more air miles than most satellites, I wondered what fresh […]
The news out of the Texas Hill Country this holiday weekend has been devastating. Before dawn on July 4, as much as 20 inches of rain fell in just a few hours, pushing the Guadalupe River far beyond its banks and sweeping away camps, homes, and entire stretches of roadway. We personally know several of […]
Out here in Hye, Texas, we like to say that July 4th doesn’t need much dressing up. A warm breeze. A cold drink. Something sizzling on the grill. A flag catching the wind just right. That’s enough. Still, there’s something about Independence Day that sneaks up and grabs you by the collar. Maybe it’s the […]
By—just a fella who knows his way around a mash bill and a tall tale Dawn in Hye, Texas, doesn’t sneak in—it stretches wide across the hills, rattles the cicadas awake, and washes the bottling room windows in warm, amber light. Inside, a line of volunteers—many of them veterans—are dipping bottles of our Small Batch […]
Hill Country Hush Most seasons announce themselves in the Hill Country with a fistful of color. Spring barges in on bluebonnets. Autumn drapes the canyons in sweet-gum reds. Even winter, what little we get of it, carves its initials on cedar trunks with a north wind that smells like mesquite smoke and frost. But late […]
Once upon a time—not so long ago, yet worlds away in spirit—bourbon was nothing but whiskey. You might find it distilled by moonlight in copper stills nestled deep in Appalachian hollows or bottled by bootleggers who cared less for tradition and more about evading the law. It was America’s working-class elixir, enjoyed by farmers after […]
