When you think of allocated whiskey releases that sell out in a flash, names like the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, Birthday Bourbon, and Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch come to mind. Add Texas distillery Garrison Brothers to that list: Its new cask-strength, single-barrel bourbon was snapped up quickly (and crashed the website in the process), but there’s another new release you can check out.
Garrison Brothers, located about an hour’s drive from Austin, was the first legal whiskey distillery to operate in Texas when it opened in 2005, and it released its first bourbon in 2010. The distillery is known for making really bold, intense wheated bourbon with a strong oaky flavor due to the fact that its barrels age in an area with extreme temperature shifts that increase interaction between whiskey and wood. We’ve covered many Garrison Brothers releases before, including the Guadalupe expression finished for two years in port barrels, the extremely high-proof Cowboy Bourbon, and last year’s Laguna Madre which was its oldest release to date. This week the distillery announced that master distiller Donnis Todd selected four different casks to be released as cask-strength, single-barrel expressions. Each bottle comes with a label that reads “Father’s Day June 16th, 2024” and can be custom engraved on the back with the message of your choice.
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These single barrel expressions are even older than the Laguna Madre release, each having spent nine years maturing in the Texas countryside. The proof ranges from a reasonable 128.8 to a certifiable hazmat level of 144.9 (that’s about 72.5 percent alcohol by volume). There were a very limited number of bottles available based on the yield from each barre—56 came from the lowest proof cask, while just 10 bottles were able to be salvaged from the highest proof barrel. It looks like the angels drank more than their fair share of these whiskeys while maturing in the hot Texas climate, which explains why so little liquid was left—and, subsequently, why these sold out so quickly. But keep an eye on the secondary market if you have some money to spend and time to kill. These were originally sold for $180 apiece, but will likely go for much more than that if people decide to flip them.
A new release from Garrison Brothers that you can actually purchase is the distillery’s Lady Bird expression, which returned to the lineup this month. This bourbon, named after Lady Bird Johnson, is aged for four years, infused with Texas wildflower honey for eight to nine months, and then aged for an additional three years in French XO Cognac casks. It’s bottled at 114 proof, and official tasting notes describe sweet honey, fresh grass, dark chocolate, cherry, and fig on the palate.
You can find the the 2024 edition of Lady Bird ($180) available to buy at the Garrison Brothers website, and you can also find many of the distillery’s other expressions at websites like ReserveBar now.
