Garrison brothers balmorhea cracked#
Garrison brothers balmorhea software#

“Dan is the soul of this thing,” says Charlie. “Today he’s the best bourbon maker in America in my opinion.”Ĭharlie says that’s a credit to Todd understanding Dan’s vision, building an incredible team of distillers, and bringing work ethic and ingenuity from his military career to the distillery. “He said, ‘My name is Donnis Todd and I want to make bourbon whiskey.’ I said, ‘Well you can’t make it here, cause I ain’t got any money and I can’t pay you.’ And he said, ‘Well I’m not going anywhere and you look like a smart man, so I’m sure you’ll figure something out.’ “I said, ‘Who are you and what are you doing in my stillhouse?’” recalls Dan. When he saw that Dan received his distilled spirits permit, Todd visited the ranch where construction was beginning on the distillery, without an invitation. Todd grew up near a grandfather who distilled, and he sought out distilling opportunities in Korea and Japan while he was in the Air Force. He gets it done and he gets it done on time and under budget every single time.”īack in 2007, Todd was enlisted in the Air Force and contemplating a longer career of service when he decided to rejoin civilian life and spend more time with his young son. I’ll be out on the road selling and we’ll have to build a new barn and Donnis, he’s the construction foreman on the project. “He jumps in and he takes over a project. “We would have shut down long ago ,” says Dan. I’m not saying you couldn’t get it anywhere else, but I know you can get it in Hye, Texas.”ĭan and Charlie agree that the distillery owes much of its success to Todd. I think it gives Garrison Brothers this very unique, amazing special mouthfeel. “What’s left in there is amazing,” says Todd. Then there’s the relationship with local farmers who grow the grains.Īnd then there’s the custom barrels and the brutal Texas summers, where temperatures soar above 100 but drop into the 70s and 60s, causing slight leakage in the barrels. First, there’s the water, high in calcium and lacking iron, straight from the ground. Todd believes a combination of elements make Garrison Brothers bourbon extraordinary. “Barrel number six was one of the earlier ones that we put away,” recalls Dan, “and when I tasted that I went, ‘Yeehaw! We did it!’ … Not only did it taste like bourbon, it tasted like a rich, full-bodied bourbon with texture and umami like I’ve never tasted before.” He worried that his product wouldn’t even taste like bourbon, which made it that much sweeter when he finally tasted his aged whiskey.

Garrison brothers balmorhea cracked#

During his first summer aging whiskey, the Texas heat cracked a barrel stave, causing a massive leak (he later found success with custom-made barrels with thicker staves) and many sleepless nights. “He’s so far ahead of everybody in the mind that he’s already figured everything out and he’s already had this conversation, and I’m just trying to catch up.” Dan Garrisonĭan admits that he constantly doubted himself in the beginning. “ highly intelligent, very motivated and typically about seven steps ahead of the rest of us,” adds Donnis Todd, Garrison Brothers’ master distiller. “That’s always been Dan’s unbelievable gift in the world, is that he has a vision and he holds it,” says Charlie, the distillery’s national sales director. And through its charitable arm, Good Bourbon For A Good Cause, the distillery has raised more than $500,000 for veterans, hospitality workers, parks and more. They covet spots on the distillery’s volunteer bottling sessions while a Facebook group titled Garrison Brothers Drinking Team is thousands of members strong. Fans flock by the hundreds to the distillery in rural Hye, Texas, for special releases like Cowboy, an uncut and unfiltered straight bourbon whiskey. The distillery has won numerous awards and honors for its bourbon lineup. Bourbon from Garrison Brothers Distillery is available in 32 states and eight countries.

More than a decade later, Dan’s vision doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

His own father and brother tried to talk him out of it, but Dan stuck to his plan.

Some experts advised that he’d need to make vodka to stay afloat in the early, lean years that he’d need to source some whiskey to start or that bourbon couldn’t come from Texas.

Garrison brothers balmorhea software#

He was unemployed after the Enron scandal of 2001 bankrupted the software company where he worked, and Dan started writing a business plan during a tour of Kentucky distilleries. In fairness to Charlie, Dan had never made whiskey. “And I’m looking at him and I’m like, ‘And I am going to fly to the moon.’” “That is truly what said to me on day one: ‘I’m going to make the best bourbon in the world,’” Charlie recalls. Bourbon from Garrison Brothers Distillery is available in 32 states and eight countries.ĭan Garrison’s vision to start the first legal whiskey distillery in Texas and make “the best bourbon in the world” was “a total pipe dream,” according to his younger brother Charlie.