Forget Cognac. This New Port Cask-Finished Bourbon Will Pair Brilliantly With Dessert.
When it comes to pairing spirits and dessert, Cognac, amaro and port are often first tipples on the menu. But whiskey drinkers take note because this new bourbon from Garrison Brothers is the perfect match for your favorite sweet treat, thanks to a lengthy finish in port casks.
Garrison Brothers is a distillery located in Hye, Texas, just about an hour west of Austin. It has the claim to fame of the first legal bourbon distillery in Texas, having gotten its license nearly 20 years ago in 2006. Nowadays, there is plenty of bourbon being produced in the state, but Garrison Brothers remains one of the best. The bourbon is made from a mashbill of corn, red winter wheat and malted barley, putting this in the same wheater category as better known brands like Pappy Van Winkle and Maker’s Mark. In addition to the core Small Batch expression, there are some limited-edition members of the family like the barrel-proof Cowboy Bourbon, doubled-barreled Balmorhea and the whiskey at hand, Guadalupe.
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Guadalupe really undergoes more of a secondary maturation than a cask finish, considering the amount of time involved. After initially aging for four years in 30-gallon barrels, the whiskey is placed into tawny port casks for a full two years. That’s quite a long time for a cask finish, especially given the extreme temperature shifts that part of Texas goes through during the year. In fact, the distillery likes to say that there are multiple aging seasons in each year, and indeed the bourbon itself is liquid proof of that with an intensely dark color and concentrated flavor.
The concept for Guadalupe began in 2015, when master distiller Donnis Todd obtained some port casks from the Lubbock winery Llano Estacado. Those barrels were filled with bourbon, culminating in the release of Estacado four years later. But since then Todd and the Garrison Brothers team have sourced barrels directly from Portugal for Guadalupe, with the first expression arriving in 2021. “This round of ports exceeded all expectations I had,” said Todd about this year’s release. “Guadalupe 2023 will easily replace chocolates for your valentine, you’re welcome.”
The bourbon is bottled at 107 proof, and the tasting notes describe what sounds decidedly like a dessert bourbon—berry fruit, ripe plums, strawberry butter on flaky biscuits, chocolate, cinnamon and lavender honey. Just over 16,000 bottles were released this year, with the first thousand selling out at the distillery earlier this month. The 2023 edition of Guadalupe will arrive at stores in the coming weeks with an SRP of $149.99. In the meantime, you can find bottles from prior years for purchase online, but prepared to pay a bit more than that asking price.
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