BOURBON BLOG
If you’ve never been out to Balmorhea, it’s hard to explain what it feels like the first time you see it. You drive for hours through West Texas, past land that looks like it’s given up on trying to impress you. Flat stretches of scrub and rock. Fence posts leaning into the wind. Heat that […]
I’ve always loved how Texas teaches you patience. Out here, the land works on its own timeline. You can’t hurry limestone. You can’t hurry oak. And you sure can’t hurry a bourbon that’s going to be worth pouring. We make bourbon in Hye, Texas, but our gratitude has always extended beyond our fences. Garrison Brothers […]
There’s a particular kind of spring morning in the Hill Country that makes you stop talking mid-sentence. The air is cool enough to keep you honest, but the sun is already warming the limestone. A breeze comes through and you catch cedar, damp soil, and that faint chalky smell of caliche dust when a truck […]
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 […]
