The tasting bar at Garrison Brothers, November 2021.
We’d heard about Garrison Brothers as a legendary Texas distillery out in Hye. MeLinda and I first went on a pretty cold day in November 2021, all bundled up, and we’d booked a tour early in the morning. We’ve been back four or five times since.
The tour
You get there, you sit down and have a cocktail while you wait for the tour to get going. Then you climb onto the back of a trailer that’s custom built with seats, and they drive you around the property. They show you the distillery, the pot stills and the mash room.
The mash room has plaques on the wall from the founding members, the people who helped them get it started. The guide told us how they were technically bootlegging at the beginning. They went on to become the first legal whiskey distillery in Texas (Wikipedia).
Then they show you the bottling. The bottle finishing room is staffed by volunteers. Over a two-day stretch they wrap the corked bottles with deerskin pull-tabs called pigtails, dip them in hot wax and seal them with a Texas star. You get on their volunteer bottling list through the distillery’s site, and the volunteers get breakfast and lunch each day, plus an old brass communion tray of “quality control” bourbon shots passed around every half hour (Garrison Brothers). It was so funny to watch people who could clearly afford to enjoy $200 bottles of bourbon working an assembly line and having a good time. I thought about signing up. I never got around to it.
They have this giant metal bull, and the guides tell you its story on the tour.
The Balmorhea
We did the full tasting flight. I really like their standard expression. The Balmorhea was their signature at the time, and it was just incredible. We took a bottle home that day, and the one open now is my third.
I don’t generally notice the hints of this and that you see in published tasting notes. I do get the vanilla, because vanillin is literally in the oak. For some reason, the way my brain works, I taste what’s actually there: the alcohol and the wood and the oak. It’s more intuitive for me, and it’s the same with wine. I love it just as much, I appreciate it just as well, and I know exactly what I like and what I don’t. I can tell the difference between a bottle of Balmorhea and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
If you’re in the Austin area, catch a Twin Liquors Dollar Sale. That’s the best place to buy the Balmorhea. It’s significantly cheaper than at the distillery or on the shelf anywhere else, and that’s where our current bottle came from. In Dram+Vine it’s open at 57.5% ABV with a quarter left, and the app’s note reads: “At 57.5% ABV this holds up well, though oxidation still speeds up as it empties.”
The distillery store gives a veterans discount, except on the really high-end expressions, which is nice since MeLinda’s a Navy veteran.
Going back
Garrison Brothers is practically across the street from William Chris. That makes for a nice day: a tasting at William Chris, then over to Garrison Brothers for a little live music and a whiskey. We’ve eaten there too. The food is solid if you’re already there. I wouldn’t go out of my way for it.
Planning a visit
Garrison Brothers is definitely worth the drive. If you’ve never been, plan a day. Book the distillery tour through their visit page before you go, and check before you head out, because we’ve driven out on days they were supposed to be open and they had a private event. Splurge on tasting the Balmorhea if you’ve never had it, and see what else they’ve got that’s new. Most days we’ve been out there, they’ve had live music, and it’s a pretty cool vibe. It’s all outside seating, so I wouldn’t go on the hottest day of the year. A spring or fall afternoon is a good time. Bring a designated driver.
The distillery is open Tuesday through Thursday 10 AM to 4 PM and Friday and Saturday 10 AM to 6 PM, closed Sunday and Monday, and the distillery says hours are subject to change. Tours run $10 a person Tuesday through Friday and $20 on Saturday, as of October 2026.
Doug