Garrison Brothers Distillery, the first legal whiskey distillery in Texas, announced this week that a team of five bartenders from San Antonio has won its 2020 Bourbon Brawl contest, a statewide bartender competition that ended last Thursday evening. Originally an in-person event, Bourbon Brawl 2020 was adapted to a COVID-safe format through a partnership with Sourced: Craft Cocktails. Sourced packaged and delivered kits of all five team’s cocktails to guests, which allowed them to participate in the final round by tuning-in, tasting each cocktail and casting their vote for the best. (Garrison Brothers Distillery, 2020)

Twenty-five bartenders, five each from Fort Worth, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin and Houston, were chosen to compete in the final round of the virtual competition. The San Antonio team is taking home a grand prize of $12,500 as well as the title of Bourbon Brawl 2020 Champions. The $12,500 prize is from a 501(c)3 public charity called Good Bourbon for a Good Cause, founded by the Garrison Family and their staff in 2018. The money will be split evenly between the five bartenders. San Antonio team members include Trinh Quan Huy-Philip, Gladys Estrada, Cruz Gutierrez, Michelle Stephenson, and Johnny Yumol.

In February 2020, contestants submitted a cocktail recipe to Garrison Brothers. A panel of drinks experts judged each cocktail blind and chose 75 bartenders to proceed to the next round. Each of the 75 bartenders’ venues featured their cocktail for two weeks, while the Garrison Brothers team visited each location to judge the cocktail along with the service. After that, they selected 25 mixologists to compete in the semi-finals, five from each major Texas city.

The five semi-finalists from each city collaborated to create one cocktail that represents their hometown. For San Antonio, it was the Alamo City cocktail that carried them to victory. This delightful combination of fresh watermelon juice, hand-squeezed lime juice, rosemary simple syrup, and Garrison Brothers Small Batch Bourbon spoke to the rich history and vibrant culture of the city. Each city’s semi-finalists were then invited to Austin for the Finals event on November 19, where only select Garrison Brothers staff were in attendance.

In further efforts to keep Bourbon Brawl 2020 COVID-safe, Garrison Brothers partnered with Sourced Craft Cocktails, a cocktail curation and delivery service, to create custom cocktail kits available for purchase and delivery in each major city. Those who purchased a cocktail kit were able to follow along with every cocktail made in the final competition, then cast their vote for the winner. 

Garrison Brothers Distillery is a small farm and ranch located in the beautiful Texas Hill Country that authentically produces straight bourbon whiskey. Garrison Brothers introduced the first bourbon whiskey legally made in Texas in 2010 and is one the first distilleries in America outside of Kentucky to produce authentic, handmade bourbon whiskey. The distillery and its barrel barns are open to the public for tours in Hye, Texas

Funds of Good Bourbon for a Good Cause are distributed to charitable organizations in Blanco and Gillespie counties of Texas and to charitable organizations that serve current and former American military personnel nationwide. The types of charitable causes that are supported include, but are not limited to organizations that help current or former American military veterans and their families and organizations dedicated to conserving and preserving nature, wildlife, green spaces, or historical landmarks and historical sites. To date, the nonprofit organization has raised and contributed close to $500,000.