Giant Texas Distillers Bourbon Heritage Month – The Grains
Welcome to the first full week of our Bourbon Heritage Month features! Each week, we are going to take you through the journey of how we make our award-winning, 100% grain-to-glass Texas Bourbons!
We are starting off with one of the most fundamental and essential parts of the process, the grains. We believe that Texas Bourbon should be made with only Texas grains, so we source from only Texas farmers. We are on a first-name basis with our farmers, and together, they work to harvest the best grains to create our award-winning spirits.
By law, bourbon must be made with at least 51% Corn, the rest of the mash bill can be any other grain, such as Rye (as seen in the video above), Malted Barley, Wheat, Rice, or other grains. Our Giant 95 Proof and Giant 100 Proof Bourbon Whiskies are made from 75% corn, 21% rye, and 4% malted barley. This mash bill was developed by David Pickerell, the “Johnny Appleseed” craft distilling.
To start the Bourbon process, our Texas grains are sent up to our milling room where they go through our hammer mill. Once the grains are milled down, the now “grist” is sent to the distillery area to start the cooking or “Mashing” process.
