Garrison Brothers Distillery Hye
— the colour of a glass held up to a Hye afternoon.
Not only on a wall.
Garrison Brothers Distillery Hye, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“The first legal bourbon distillery in Texas sits on a quiet ranch road outside Hye, a wide spot in the Hill Country between Johnson City and Fredericksburg. Limestone, oak motts, a tin-roofed rickhouse where the summers do the work three winters do in Kentucky. Tours run on the hour. The pour at the end is small and slow, the way the place asks you to be. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Garrison Brothers Distillery sits on a working ranch on US Highway 290 outside Hye, in Blanco County, between Johnson City and Stonewall. Founded by Dan Garrison in 2005 and licensed in 2008, it was the first legal bourbon distillery in Texas and the first outside Kentucky and Tennessee to make straight bourbon under the federal standard. The grain is Texas-grown corn and soft red winter wheat; the water comes from on-site wells in the Edwards-Trinity aquifer. Tours run year-round and end with a tasting in the barrel barn.
Hill Country summers run hot enough that bourbon ages two to three times faster here than in Kentucky. Barrels in the tin-roofed rickhouses see daytime highs over 100°F and overnight lows in the 70s, so the wood breathes hard. The angel's share at Garrison Brothers runs near a tenth of the barrel each year, more than triple the Kentucky norm. The flavour comes out earlier and darker, with the caramel notes that long Texas heat pulls forward.
The distillery sits at 1827 Hye-Albert Road, about a mile off US 290, between mile markers Johnson City and Stonewall. Tours run roughly every hour from late morning to mid-afternoon, Wednesday through Sunday, and last about ninety minutes. Reservations are required and book out weeks ahead in spring and fall. The route passes the cooker house, the limestone fermentation room, and one of the rickhouses, and ends with a guided tasting of the Small Batch and a single-barrel pour at the bar.
