If this doesn’t prove we live in the greatest country in America, I don’t know what could:

Within 24 hours of the call for bottling volunteers, we filled every open slot we had available for February. Since this seems to be kind of popular, we’ll do it again later this year and will let you know dates soon.

God bless you and thank you Texas!

Want to try something no one in Texas has ever done before?

In February, we’ll be bottling our largest bourbon release ever – more than 80 barrels of our straight bourbon will be emptied into stainless steel tanks, married with crisp, clean rainwater, proofed and entered into bottles. Each hand-numbered and signed bottle is sealed with a cork, wrapped in deerskin lace, and then dipped in hot wax. These bottles will be sold throughout the Hill Country and a few hundred cases will be distributed to fine liquor stores, bars and restaurants in the big cities. (We can’t say where just yet.)

We thought a few of you might like to come to Hye and give us a hand.

A word of warning: Bottling at Garrison Brothers is not for the faint of heart! It means hard work, careful attention to detail, reliable, consistent help, and above all else, patience. Every finished bottle has to get past Inspector Number 1 — me. To get a glimpse of what I mean, please take a look at this 5 minute video our good friend Rob Cordes put together: http://gallery.me.com/robcordes/100000.

We’ll be bottling from 8 am to 5 pm, Monday thru Friday, the weeks of February 7, February 14 and February 28. We need 8 people each day and already have about 40 sensational volunteers. We provide meals, beverages and plenty of bourbon throughout the day. (In fact, tradition holds that we celebrate with a little “quality control” sample every time we finish 200 bottles.)

If you’d like to take part, it will take us a couple of hours to train you, so we ask those who participate to commit to work two full days. At the end of your shift, we’ll reward you with your own bottle to take home with you.

If you can handle your own travel arrangements, and commit to giving us two days hard work, please send an email to Laurel Hoekstra, our Bottling Queen, at laurel@garrisonbros.com and give her your contact information and the 2 days you can work. The deadline for contacting her is Sunday, January 16, so that we can invite others to fill all the slots.

As always, thanks for your support!