Meeting #11: Jan 25 - Texas Night

After a brief hiatus over the holiday season, High Flight is back in action! It was great seeing everyone!

To kick off 2025, we looked around the country once again to see what other states had to offer (remember CO night?) The Colonel, having lived in San Antonio for some years, wanted to go BIG and see what Texas had to offer. After some research, we learned some interesting things...

If you aren't familiar (those in attendance are educated now), the Angel's Share refers to evaporative volume-loss during barrel aging. Way back when, folks would open their aged barrels and were shocked by a significant amount of liquid missing. They couldn't figure out why since the barrels were sealed. So, the only logical explanation was the angels drank some of their whiskey! As we know, wooden barrels are not air tight and climate plays a huge role in the aging process, including evaporation.

Obviously, Texas and Kentucky have VERY different climates. The majority of Kentucky is green and humid, and angels take their share at a respectful rate of about 2-3% per year. On the contrary, Texas is mostly HOT and DRY. The angels are thirsty down south, and there is anywhere from 10-15% of volume lost per year. For this reason, a lot of Texas distillers actually use larger barrels to account for some of this volume loss. Other distillers, like Garrison Brothers, have also experimented with small thick-walled barrels for strength, as they've actually had barrels explode from pressure during hot summer months (top levels of TX rick-houses can hit up to 130 degrees!). Also, smaller barrels theoretically speed up the aging process by allowing a smaller volume to interact more with the wood.

So, let's see what these Texans are up to - here's the lineup:

#1) TX Straight Bourbon Whiskey (Fort Worth, TX)

90 proof / Aged 4+ years / $50

Undisclosed mashbill: TX Yellow Dent Corn, TX soft red and winter wheat, and 6-row distillers malt (using a proprietary strain of yeast from the TX Pecan nut).

HF Avg: 3.1

NOSE: Blast of corn up front, followed by sweetness of pecan pie, maple syrup.

TASTE: Soft and sweet. Cinnamon pecan pie. Relatively light mouth-feel.

FINISH: Oak and pepper notes, lingering sip, but a bit on the mild/weaker end.

TX is a good bourbon. There's nothing ground-breaking or outstanding here, but its a pleasant and traditional-style sipper. I think the club scored it pretty fairly, landing TX in the middle of our whiskey log at 3.1.

#2) Garrison Brothers Small Batch Straight Bourbon Whiskey (Hye, TX)

94 proof / Aged 3+ / $85

74% Corn, 15% TX winter wheat, 11% Malted Barley

HF Avg: 2.59

NOSE: Grassy, Mossy, Wet Hay (worse with a couple drops of water)

Nose (from other reviews): Butterscotch, vanilla, nutmeg...

TASTE: Grainy, some fruit, young

Taste (from other reviews): Leather, fruit, browned butter, angel foodcake...

FINISH: (from other reviews) smooth, espresso, chocolate, oak, sweet and spice...

Garrison Brothers receives high notes from many bourbon reviewers online, but their tasting notes didn't correlate with our experience. After a few members mentioned the smell of wet hay, I couldn't get it out of my nose. It tasted young to me, like it was pulled from the barrel a couple years early. Unfortunately, GB received the club's lowest score to date, which isn't ideal at $85. We are confused! Greg is wondering if this was a bad bottle?

#3) Still Austin Cask Strength Bourbon (Austin, TX)

118 proof / Aged 2 Years /$50

70% Corn, 25% Rye, 5% Malted Barley. All Texas grown.

HF Avg: 3.42

NOSE: Sweet butterscotch, dark cherries, vanilla.

TASTE: Warm, oaky, cherry, rye spice, more butterscotch but softer

FINISH: warming spice, pleasantly oaky, burnt sugar

Going out with a bang! Still Austin Cask Strength is a great sipper, and $50 is a great deal! I'm surprised by its young age, which I didn't realize until typing this... it seems much more mature and balanced than 2 years? If so, they've figured something out! HF members really enjoyed this as well, scoring 3.42 (only 0.01 less than our 2XO gala bourbon at $100)! Still Austin is not available in PA currently, but can be acquired at Total Wine in MD or DE.

We hope everyone had a great time, and we'll see you next month, Thursday FEB 13! Same time, same place. AND...our upcoming meeting will officially be 1 YEAR of High Flight!!