Tasting notes

nose

Caramel and vanilla bean lead, with toasted and charred oak, dark fruit, cinnamon and a faint menthol edge

palate

Full-bodied, with caramel, cherry and roasted nuts over baking spice, plus corn sweetness, vanilla, oak char and a little leather

finish

Long and warming; toasted oak and vanilla stay as the sweetness fades, then pepper, sweet leather and a touch of dark chocolate lead into a drier, tannic close

Mash bill

Corn, wheat and malted barley, in a split the distillery does not publish for this bottle. The house wheated recipe used for its other straight bourbons is 74% corn, 15% wheat and 11% malted barley. The distillery says its grains are locally sourced.

Why it's craft

Each bottle is drawn from a single barrel, at least three years old, that Master Distiller Donnis Todd has tasted and picked for the program, so no two barrels pour alike. Garrison Brothers cooks, distills, ages and bottles all of its bourbon at its ranch distillery in Hye, Texas, which Dan and Nancy Garrison established in 2006 and began distilling at legally in 2008. The Single Barrel line started in 2013, when a new state law first let Texas distilleries sell bottles to visitors on site.