When you think of Texas, you think of wide skies, raw edges, and stories as long as the highways. Few spirits capture that spirit as honestly as Garrison Brothers, the first legal bourbon distillery in the Lone Star State. This month, they’ve given us a new chapter to savor: the 2025 Guadalupe Texas Straight Bourbon Whiskey, releasing July 12 at the distillery in Hye, Texas, before landing nationwide by the end of the month.
This isn’t just another bottle on a shelf — it’s a living piece of Texas, a liquid poem to the Guadalupe River, as wild and winding as the land it cuts through. Guadalupe’s journey began in 2015, when Master Distiller Donnis Todd first tucked four-year-old bourbon into port casks from a local winery. That spark turned into an annual tradition, culminating now in this fifth release.
For 2025, about 8,600 bottles of the whiskey will make it into the world, with the first 1,000 snapped up by diehards at the distillery’s release event. Guadalupe starts life with four years in white American oak before two transformative years in tawny port casks — a patient, elegant aging process that coaxes out berry fruit, ripe plum, chocolate, toasted coffee bean, and that whispered Texas heat you can almost taste in the finish.
Bottled at 107 proof, each copper-waxed bottle is numbered by hand, as if to remind you this is no mass-market pour. This is whiskey sculpted by Hye’s wild weather and proofed with rainwater gathered from the ranch. “Water makes the whiskey,” says Todd. “Guadalupe 2025 is bold and beautiful, shaped by those Texas swings.”
For the first time, Garrison Brothers is also releasing 1,000 bottles of Guadalupe Cask Strength Single Barrel, clocking in at a brawny 123.9 to 129.8 proof. At $219.99 a bottle, it’s for the true believers, and each bottle sold sends $50 to the Gulf Trust — a Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation initiative supporting vibrant, resilient Gulf waters.
“Every one of our rivers, including the Guadalupe, flows to the Gulf,” says Gulf Trust’s Jay Kleberg. “We’re all connected by water.”
The accolades are already pouring in: Platinum and Spirit of the Year at the 2025 San Diego International Wine and Spirits Challenge, Double Platinum from the Ascot Awards, and Double Gold from Los Angeles Invitational Spirits Challenge.
Available for $149.99, Garrison Brothers Guadalupe 2025 isn’t just bourbon — it’s Texas, bottled and ready to travel wherever you call home.
For more, visit Garrison Brothers’ official website.
Last year, the Texas Whiskeymaker’s brought back its honey-infused Lady Bird Bourbon for a limited time only.
