Skip to main content

Up Your Bourbon Game: Buy An Entire Freakin’ Barrel of It

up your bourbon game buy an entire freakin barrel of it gb family rustic background copy
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Walk into just about any hipster joint and/or craft distillery/brewery in the country and you’re bound to see a bourbon barrel being used in some way—as a table, as the base of a sink, as a general piece of art.

The problem with all these barrels? There’s no bourbon in them.

It’s all well and good that bourbon barrels can be used as art after their time is done, but here’s the thing. That’s boring. Bourbon barrels, I think we can all agree, are better when there is actual bourbon in them (though, the bourbon is arguably better when it is taken out of the barrel).

Well, Texas-based Garrison Brothers Bourbon is here to help. They recently unveiled their new Single Barrel Bourbon program, which will allow customers to buy an entire barrel of their bourbon, which was named the 2014 Micro Whiskey of the Year.

Related: I.W. Harper: Bourbon So Delicious You’ll Forgive It For Leaving

What this means is that, once you pick your barrel, you commit to buying all 48-81 bottles (depending on the angel’s share loss) yielded by said barrel. Not only do you get the bottles of bourbon, but you get to keep the barrel as well.

Never had the bourbon? At three years old and 94-proof, it is the “big brother” to Garrison Brothers Texas Straight Bourbon Whiskey. It’s made from organic Panhandle corn, soft red winter wheat, two-row malted barley and pure, clean Hill Country rainwater.

The barrels range form $5,300 to $8,900 per barrel, which averages out to around $109 per bottle. There are only 300 barrels for sale, so if this is your thing, start looking at booking your flight to Hye, Texas to get your hands on a true bourbon collector’s item.

(If you do buy a barrel, though, make sure to send us a bottle or four as a finder’s fee.)

Editors' Recommendations

Sam Slaughter
Sam Slaughter was the Food and Drink Editor for The Manual. Born and raised in New Jersey, he’s called the South home for…
3 Fancy Casserole Recipes to Up Your Cooking Game
Nelly’s Pastitsio

As cooking from home has become a necessity, we’re constantly looking for ways to make our time in the kitchen more fun and delicious. And although we love spending hours cooking up something super gourmet, it’s not always how we can — or want — to occupy our time. Enter the casserole, a one-dish wonder that you likely ate when you were young, served by moms, grandmas, and aunts everywhere. While your mind may wander to throwbacks like tuna noodle casserole (which we love, btw), really anything that comes together in a baking dish can be considered a casserole. So we chatted with some of our favorite chefs and cookbook authors to snag a few fancy casserole recipes that will definitely up your cooking game when you’re looking for a little inspiration.
Nelly’s Pastitsio

“Pastitsio is a very popular baked pasta dish that is said to have origins in Venice, Italy,” Anna Francese Gass, author of Heirloom Kitchen, says. “After tasting it, I immediately thought that this dish tastes as if lasagna Bolognese and fettuccini Alfredo had a delicious love child.” In her cookbook Heirloom Kitchen, Gass features recipes from 40 immigrant women who brought their cooking to the United States. Nelly’s Pastitsio is a perfect dish if you’re looking for the ultimate comfort meal.

Read more
Legent Bourbon Teams Up with Tokyo Butcher Kentaro Nakahara
legent bourbon burger popup

When Beam Suntory released Legent Bourbon last spring, the whiskey world was divided. There were many who liked this new bourbon, a collaboration between Jim Beam and Suntory. The whiskey was distilled at Beam, finished in wine casks, and finally blended by Suntory master blender Shinji Fukuyo with non-finished Beam bourbon. There were also some who were not so enamored (there always are), who felt that the final product was a bit heavy on the finish and did not live up to the hype. If nothing else, Legent was a first for the mega drinks company, combining the resources of its American bourbon and Japanese whisky operations, at least conceptually.

This week Legent is back in the news, as Beam Suntory has brought Tokyo-based butcher and restaurateur Kentaro Nakahara to America to do a couple of pop-up dinners in New York City and Chicago. Nakahara is known for his burgers in Japan, and the point of these events is to showcase how he remixes and redefines an American classic, much in the same way that Legent claims to redefine what bourbon can be (within limits, obviously, as the category is highly regulated with certain rules that must be followed).

Read more
Booker’s Newest Bourbon, Shiny Barrel Batch, is an Ode to Bygone Traditions
shiny barrel batch bookers bourbon brookers 2015 release

The second release in the 2019 series of ç is here, and this one is a nod to an employee tradition we wish we had in our own jobs.

Booker’s Bourbon 2019-02 is named “Shiny Barrel Batch” in honor of a practice undertaken by rackhouse workers back in the day. You see, it can get hot in a rackhouse, and sometimes, you just need a little something to quench that thirst (even if it happens to be barrel proof bourbon). Rackhouse workers would sneak tastes from barrels and, in doing so, would inadvertently wipe the dust off the barrel.

Read more