One hundred and two barrels. That is how many 53-gallon casks Donnis Todd pulled from the rickhouses at Garrison Brothers Distillery for the Texas producer's next Bottled-in-Bond bourbon, every one of them filled on the same autumn day in 2020. Six years of Hill Country summers later, those barrels are about to become the distillery's second bonded release, a 100-proof Texas straight bourbon set to make its debut on Saturday, November 14, 2026.
The launch arrives less than a year after Garrison Brothers put out its first Bottled-in-Bond expression in February 2026, and it signals that the bonded label is turning into a recurring fixture in the Hye, Texas, distillery's lineup rather than a one-time experiment. For collectors who missed the first round, and for drinkers who simply want a well-aged, full-proof Texas bourbon with a clear paper trail, the fall release is worth circling on the calendar.
A Release Day Built Around a Fundraiser
Garrison Brothers is tying the bottle's arrival to its annual Red, White & Bourbon fundraiser, an event held at the distillery that benefits The National Museum of the Pacific War. The first 1,000 bottles of the new Bottled-in-Bond will be sold on-site that day.
The fundraiser itself is ticketed and starts at 11 a.m., but the distillery is opening its gates to the public at 8 a.m. specifically for the bourbon release. That means a buyer does not need a fundraiser ticket simply to get in line for a bottle. Sales will run all day on a first-come, first-served basis, so anyone serious about securing one of those first 1,000 should plan on an early drive into the Hill Country.
Whatever is left after Saturday will not vanish. Remaining bottles go on sale in the distillery gift shop beginning Monday, November 16, 2026, giving a second shot to those who cannot make the weekend trip.
Wider Availability Later in November
The distillery drop is only the opening act. Garrison Brothers says the fall Bottled-in-Bond will reach e-commerce and select retailers, restaurants and bars by the end of November 2026. The total run for this release is 19,500 bottles across the market, with a suggested retail price of $89.99.
That figure puts the bourbon in a familiar bracket for limited American releases that carry an age statement. Whether it actually lands on shelves at suggested retail will depend, as always, on the store and the region, but at 19,500 bottles this is a meaningfully larger run than a single-barrel pick or a distillery-only exclusive.
What "Bottled-in-Bond" Actually Promises
The bonded designation is one of the oldest consumer protections in American whiskey. It traces back to the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897, a federal law written to protect the integrity of what was already being treated as the national spirit at a time when plenty of so-called whiskey on the market was adulterated, colored or flat-out fake.
To carry the words Bottled-in-Bond, a whiskey has to clear a specific set of hurdles:
It must be produced within a single distilling season, by one distiller, at one distillery. It must be aged in bonded storage, meaning a government-supervised warehouse. And it must be bottled at exactly 100 proof.
Those rules strip away a lot of the blending flexibility a producer otherwise has. There is no reaching across multiple years of production to balance out a batch and no pulling in stock from another site. What is in the bottle is a snapshot of one season's work at one place. For a brand like Garrison Brothers, which built its reputation on a corn-to-cork approach, the format is a natural fit.
One Season, One Day of Barrels
This release leans hard into that single-season idea. The whiskey was distilled in October 2020, during the distillery's fall distilling season, and Todd says the 102 barrels he chose were all filled on October 2, 2020. That is a tighter window than the bonded rules require, and it gives the release an unusually precise origin story: one distillery, one master distiller's selection, one fill date.
Six Years Under the Texas Sun
Age statements carry a different weight in Texas than they do in Kentucky. Garrison Brothers has long made the case that the Hill Country's heat drives the interaction between spirit and oak harder and faster than more temperate climates. The distillery describes this release as the product of "six years of Hill Country heat, forging oak into flavor," alongside its standard hallmarks of sweet mash grain and open-air fermentations.
The bourbon is made from Texas grains and proofed with Hill Country rainwater, two details the distillery has made central to its identity. Garrison Brothers describes itself as the first and oldest legal whiskey distillery in Texas and the first distillery outside Kentucky to produce handcrafted, corn-to-cork bourbon whiskey, and only bourbon whiskey. Every drop is distilled and aged on the ranch and bottled by hand there.
A six-year-old Texas bourbon is a meaningful milestone. In a climate where barrels can give up flavor aggressively, six years in oak represents a deliberate choice to let the whiskey ride well past the point many younger craft producers bottle at, while still keeping it at the regulated 100 proof that bonded whiskey demands.
Brown Sugar, White Pepper and Thanksgiving Spice
Bottled at 50% ABV, the second Bottled-in-Bond release comes with official tasting notes from the brand of toasted brown sugar, cinnamon and white pepper. The distillery points to hints of leather and vanilla on the finish, with nods to Thanksgiving baking spices, nutmeg and anise.
Given the timing, those holiday-leaning notes line up neatly with a mid-November release and an end-of-month retail push. It is a profile built for cold-weather pours, whether neat, with a few drops of water to open up the 100-proof spirit, or as the backbone of a stirred drink that can stand up to that level of proof.
In the Master Distiller's Words
Todd, who serves as master distiller at Garrison Brothers, was clearly pleased with what came out of the casks.
"I've selected 102 fifty-three-gallon barrels filled on October 2, 2020, to support the next round of Bottled in Bond," Donnis Todd, Master Distiller, Garrison Brothers, said in a news release. "It's beautiful. I'm excited to share what came out of these hard working six-year-old 53-gallon barrels and give Garrison Brothers fans a taste of the future."
The phrase "a taste of the future" is worth noting. With two bonded releases now in the books inside a single year, one in February and this one in November, the distillery appears to be setting up Bottled-in-Bond as an ongoing series tied to its distilling seasons rather than a single limited bottle.
Following February's First Bonded Bottle
Garrison Brothers released its first Bottled-in-Bond expression in February 2026, and the distillery frames this fall release as a continuation of its salute to Texas Straight Bourbon Whiskey. WhiskeyPulse covered that first release when it was announced.
Pairing the two releases side by side will be the obvious move for dedicated fans. Because each bonded bottling must come from a single distilling season, the series effectively becomes a record of how the distillery's spirit and its Hill Country warehouses perform from one season to the next. The fall 2020 distillate in this new release is labeled for its season, which invites exactly that kind of comparison.
Why a Texas Bonded Bourbon Matters
For most of its history, Bottled-in-Bond has been associated with Kentucky, and many of the best-known bonded bourbons on shelves still come from the Bluegrass State. A Texas distillery committing to the format repeatedly is a statement about how far American craft whiskey has come since Garrison Brothers was founded.
Dan and Nancy Garrison started the distillery in 2006, and its bourbon first reached the market in 2010. In the years since, the brand has grown to the point where its premium Texas Straight Bourbon Whiskey is sold nationwide and across five countries. Releasing a six-year-old bonded bourbon at a run of nearly 20,000 bottles shows a producer with enough aged inventory to play by the oldest rules in American whiskey without stretching its stock thin.
The bonded format also gives buyers something increasingly valued in a crowded market: transparency. The label alone tells a drinker where the whiskey was made, that it came from a single season and that it was bottled at full 100 proof. Add a six-year age statement and a specific barrel fill date, and this release offers more verifiable information than most bottles on the shelf.
How to Get a Bottle
For anyone planning a trip, here is the timeline as Garrison Brothers has laid it out:
Saturday, November 14, 2026: Gates open to the public at 8 a.m. at the distillery in Hye, Texas, for the release. The first 1,000 bottles go on sale on a first-come, first-served basis throughout the day, while the ticketed Red, White & Bourbon fundraiser for The National Museum of the Pacific War begins at 11 a.m.
Monday, November 16, 2026: Any bottles left over from Saturday go on sale in the distillery gift shop.
End of November 2026: The release reaches e-commerce and select retailers, restaurants and bars, with 19,500 bottles in total and a suggested retail price of $89.99.
More information is available from the distillery at garrisonbros.com. For Texas bourbon fans, a six-year-old, single-season, 100-proof bottle from the state's oldest legal whiskey distillery, launched in support of a museum honoring Pacific War veterans, makes for a strong reason to make the drive to Hye this November.
