Garrison Brothers Guadalupe (2023 Release)

Cocoa nibs, oak, dark fruits

Nice deep bourbon flavor with the fruitiness of the port on the nose snd palette. Unique and great.

Still very good, but my least favorite garrison bros ive tried. Id take small batch or single barrel or balmorhea over this any day. I feel like the port masks what makes garrison bros great: that intense sour oakiness, the savoriness to the white corn, all masked by the sweet smoothness of the port.

N: Dripping, sticky floral honey, peach candy, barnyard funk that also somehow feels like it's been contained in a hard candy, paper pulp, lightly smoked meat topped with grilled peach or pineapple rings, lots of other less specific fruity things going on, and a slight hint of ethanol. P: Big red wine notes, dried cherry, touch of red wine oak, caramel, dusty book, cooked vanilla, little bit of honey, earth, and that characteristic GB dry funk that comes across, to me, as wet cardboard. F: Ethanol hot, wood, earth, dust, sticky cherry compote, mint/menthol, green tea, honey, maybe some dark chocolate. This might be my favorite GB release. But I'm pretty sure it's also going to be the last one I buy. GB has a cult following. And there's often a reference in reviews to some sort of "funk" note that seems to be unique to GB. Every GB bottle I've tried, from Cowboy down, has had that same wet cardboard note that this one has. (I would guess at this point that it's a product of a proprietary yeast strain.) That note here is lighter than any other GB I've tried, and comes late after that lovely port finish has its say, but it's still more than enough that I have no interest in another bottle of this, much less any of the even more wet cardboard-y bottles. Others seem to taste this funky note differently, but I've had my fill of wet cardboard bourbon. I'll leave future releases to the cult. I'll add, I think every GB release is overpriced by about a 2:1 ratio. This was a $150 bottle. If Balcones had released this, I'd expect it to be more like $75-80. I guess if that funk hits you right, maybe you disagree, but I've lost the ability to imagine that now. _______________________ Please come join an unofficial Distiller community on Discord (now one whole year old!): https://discord.gg/4nfePCdyKM. We chat spirits (and other things) in real time while being a great resource to each other for recommendations, finding deals, and generally enjoying the journey together. (If the link is expired - it shouldn't be - please post a comment and I will gladly and usually quickly provide a new one.)