Dan Garrison of Garrison Brothers Bourbon: We are a revolution and a cult
It seems these days everyone wants to get into the spirits business. And with good reason! Alcohol sales have increased 300% since COVID and with restaurants, in some states, ability to send home cocktail kits to go, let’s just say business is good.
It takes more than an enticing label and a little clever marketing to create a cult following. If your brand is lacking in substance, your hype will quickly fade.
Growing up in Texas, bourbon was certainly a favorite among the locals but not just any bourbon would do. Jim Beam and Wild Turkey seemed to be the brand names we were most familiar with, but diehard bourbon fans had another favorite…. Garrison Brothers.
Garrison Brothers is located in Hye, Texas. That’s unusual as most bourbon is made in Kentucky. In fact, Garrison Brothers was the first distillery in Texas to make a true bourbon. And what defines a bourbon? The product must be made with at least 51% corn. Otherwise, it’s just a whiskey.
Garrison has that cult following with a typical waiting list of 17,000+ on bottling days, and sells out within hours. So what makes this bourbon so different? Dan Garrison was there to break it down for me….
There are a few Texas Bourbons….What makes Garrison Brothers different from the rest.
Character, complexity, texture. The finest grains, the most expensive barrels. The Texas heat and the Texas terroir. The heat here causes the liquid to frequently flow in and out of the wood during maturation so the resulting liquid is thick, rich and oily.
Garrison was the first Texas distillery to be given the title, Bourbon Distillery in the state. Explain what that means.
Garrison Brothers Distillery became the first legal whiskey distillery in the state when we were officially formed in 2006. There was Tito (vodka), Dripping Springs (vodka) and one or two others. But nobody had the cajones to make bourbon. Bourbon had not been made in any other place in the world — other than Kentucky.
Your Cowboy Bourbon sells out in hours! That’s quite a following. For anyone not in the know, tell us why the excitement around this bourbon?
Garrison Brothers drinkers are this wildly insane, unstoppable band of brothers and sisters. They drive from all over the country to be at our distillery — and often camp out overnight on the side of the road — just so they can brag to their friends that they got the first bottle from this release or that release. I love them and hope they never stop coming. We are a revolution and a cult.
Whiskey has become the new spirit to buy as an investment. If I was a beginning collector, what would you suggest I purchase, and why.
On March 2, 2010 (Texas Independence Day), we released our first bourbon. It was called The Young Gun and was packaged in a tall, thin 375 ml bottle. Just 1,000 bottles were released. They sold out from liquor stores in fewer than 24 hours. If you can find or steal one of those from someone, I’m betting it would sell for some serious money on the black market.
But Dan, are you seriously suggesting there’s a black market for rare bourbon bottles.
Yes, I most certainly am.
Thanks Dan. I’m always on the hunt for the elusive and you’ve just added one more item to the list!
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