OUR PROCESS

For many years, Scottish Golden Promise had been a highly valued ingredient in Scotch whisky for its honeyed, warm and toasty character. This started to shift in the 1980s when producers in the category began to favor other varietals that produced more alcohol but were less flavorful.

Since 2010, when we first began our journey into the whisky-making world, we've used Golden Promise to add warmth to and bring out notes of stone fruit in our spirit, because of the microflora it picks up across many vehicles and vessels during its long transit to us from our supplier, Simpsons Malt.

Texas is a notoriously difficult place to grow distilling-grade crops. Between our uncompromising climate and its unpredictable, volatile weather shifts, finding the right varieties that would thrive in our climate was a challenge that few wanted to take on.

That is until 2014, when a Texas university partnered with local farmers and maltsters to create the state's first brewing-grade barley. Just two years later, the first harvest of Texas malted barley was ready to be delivered to our distillery to become Texas single malt.

Since then, dozens of breweries, distilleries, farmers and maltsters have benefited from its introduction-including us. Today, our barley is malted by TexMalt and Maverick before being used to craft our award-winning Lineage Texas Single Malt.

We use blue corn that is 100% Texas-grown and roasted. The variety we use is a hybridized version of the heirloom Hopi Blue derived from the Hopi Tribe in New Mexico. Our hybrid strain is self-pollinating which helps us achieve the consistently delicious flavor that shines through in our Baby Blue Straight Corn Whisky and Brimstone Smoked Whisky.

Our blue corn is grown by Sunny State Farm, then roasted and cleaned by MBS Seed before being sent to our distillery.

Rye has a rich tradition in American whisky. Because it is famed for its bold flavor, we wanted to stay true to these staples, while adding our own twist to our Texas Rye Bottled in Bond. We source our Texas-grown rye from our friends at MBS Seed.

Our 100% rye mashbill used in our Texas Rye Bottled in Bond is composed of:

• 91% Raw Texas Elbon Rye
• 5% Cara Rye
• 2% Chocolate Rye
• 2% Roasted Rye

Our mash tun, inherited from Speyburn Distillery in Speyside, Scotland, is over 50 years old and has special features, including a copper dome and handmade brass rivets. Inside this mash tun, enzymes convert the starches into a sugary liquid ready to use for fermentation.

Our extended fermentation allows our pitched yeast, our wild house culture and the lactobacillus that hitched a ride on the grain to produce organic acids. These acids eventually bond with the heavy alcohols produced by the ale yeast, creating esters-the fruity and floral aromas you'll find across the Balcones range.

In copper pot batch distillation, the liquid wash coming from the fermenters is distilled on the wash stills, producing a low-ABV distillate called a low wine. The second still, known as the spirit still, accepts the low wines. During the spirit distillation, our heart cuts are collected to be barreled, while our heads and tails cuts are blended to become feints. These feints and low wines are then added into subsequent spirit distillations.

In our new distillery, Forsyths suggested that we replicate the original lyne arm geometry by coiling the copper into a helical lyne arm on our new larger stills. Not only did this retain the unique character of our distillate, but it also resulted in some of the tallest copper pot stills in the world.

The equipment we choose plays a large part in retaining as much of our expression’s core flavor as possible. In the modern era, grain whiskies are almost exclusively run on column stills. Our wash stills are outfitted with an "external reboiler" located outside the still. The contents of the still are pumped into this external device for heating. This allows us to pot distill our Single Grain Whiskies on-grain.

Waco's daily temperature changes mean there's a fluctuation in where we cut our spirits. These variants in production pose challenges in our process. Using temperature and ABV as a starting point, our experienced distillers then work out the cut points by smell and taste.

Even the slightest shift in temperature or barometric pressure can influence the character of our distillate. That's why we prioritize being present in every step of the process. We guide the distillate, through frequent sensory analysis, making cuts, listening to the equipment and adapting our approach to each day’s unique character. This process allows us to craft fruitier and brighter spirits, by nimbly accentuating desirable compounds and preserving nuanced flavors and aromas.

We carried out a study in partnership with Independent Stave Company, which revealed that maturing the same base spirit in the exact same casks in Texas, Kentucky, Washington and Scotland results in flavors that are completely unique to Texas.

Rapid swings from hot to cold are characteristic of our region's weather. When the Texas sun beats down, the wood expands as its pores open, allowing whisky to permeate deep within the barrel. When the cold creeps in, our oak barrels tense up, wringing out tannins and spice hidden deep in the wood. These quick shifts allow our whisky to go into the pores of the oak and force our barrels to “breathe” much faster and deeper than those in other whisky-producing regions.

Leaning into these extremes allows us to stay true to the essence of Texas, unlocking flavors and aromas we couldn't otherwise achieve, resulting in rich spirits only Waco can create.

As a guide, we'll aim to get our grain whisky's entry proof between 105 and 120, and our single malt whisky's entry proof between 110 and 118. Then it's about pairing that with the right cask.

With diligent focus on every detail, including taking the extra step of toasting and charring the barrel heads, our new oak barrels cost two to three times the industry average. The remainder consists of used Kentucky bourbon barrels, used Tequila and Mezcal barrels, Texas and California wine casks as well as used barrels from our own in-house collection. This broadens the palette and helps us achieve more nuanced profiles, ensuring that wherever the natural elements push our whisky, there's flavor to be found.

We use a variety of barrel sizes and types, allowing our whisky to achieve a more complex and nuanced profile. Each cask is carefully selected to explore different dimensions of maturation and its unlimited possibilities.

After the initial sensory pass to grade individual barrel samples, we bring these barrels together in benchtop mock blends-barrel by barrel-adding to the mock blend until we feel it's ready to be passed off to our warehouse team for disgorgement from barrels. After disgorgement, the true base blend sitting in our casking tanks will then be refined with additional spike barrels to coax it to the desired flavor profile.

One of our blenders, Emma Crandall, describes blending alongside the team as a group of artists painting together on one shared canvas. The blending room is a sacred space for peace, tranquility and pure presence in the moment.

To preserve this energy, we begin each session by grounding ourselves in the present moment as we prepare for the work ahead. This helps us to clear our senses of distractions, leaving space to bring our best and full selves to the blending table so we can pour positive energy into every one of our whiskies.

The scorching summer enhances the flavor of our whisky, causing the distillate to reach deep within the pores of the oak, extracting rich flavors that are immensely rewarding to the palate.

The hardier Texas winter comes with different challenges than those of the extreme Texas summer. During this season, tannins and spice compounds from deep within are wrung out of the oak pores causing large quantities to seep into the maturing whisky. We typically wait for the tannins to oxidize and soften over the course of a few months, then continue our blending in the spring.