Well, hello!

We've decided to start a blog here at Graham Barnes Distilling to keep everyone updated on what we're up to going forward.  However, I think the first few that we'll be putting up will be an attempt to get everyone caught up on how we got to where we are now.  We released our Treaty Oak Platinum Rum just short of three years ago, roughly three years since we had decided to start up our distillery. We've since gone on to release our second product, Graham's Texas Tea, we're moving into a new distillery about four times our current location and are working on releasing an aged rum and a blended whiskey over the next year.

We're family owned - my wife Rachael and her mom Christy, along with Bruce Graham, Christy's husband - make up the ownership.

Luckily for all of us, Bruce has a background in both engineering and loving to restore cars - the perfect combination for designing and building both of our stills.  On the other hand, I had been a homebrewer for many years as well a big-time wine nerd.  Recipes and 'product testing' fell in my direction.

For those of you that don't know me, my name is Daniel Barnes.  I'm a sixth generation Texan that grew up in Menard, Texas, a small hill country town, where my parents ran a motel and restaurant.  I take care of running most of the business dealing with the distillery, along with Joshua Holland (our jack-of-all-trades lead distiller), Chris Lamb (Joshua's brother who is taking over a lot of our distilling), Craig Sherlock (he's our brand ambassador here in Austin - kind of like Face for the A-Team) and Eric Thornton (he runs our tasting department).  You'll be hearing from everybody on our team as we release future blogs.

I'll try to cover as many of our back stories as I possibly can, and spend a lot of time focusing on where we're heading.  Plus, we'll release some specials on different cocktails people have created with our spirits.  We'll be trying to open our doors up for tours before the end of the year, so I look forward to having a "block party" once we've got that ready.  I'll be filling you guys in on how we got this all started the next time I get around to knocking out another blog entry.