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9-12-23 Tonight at 9PM ET, we’ll be talking with Don Miller, head distiller and owner at Texas Rivers Distilling Company in Freeport, Texas.
Texas Rivers Distilling Co. was created in February of 2019 in Brazoria County… “Where Texas Began”. They are an LLC registered with the State of Texas as a Distilled Spirits Manufacturer and engage in Distillation and Rectification of craft spirits. They make Bourbon, Rum, Sour and Sweet Mash, and Indian Corn (Milo) Whiskey; all sourced from Texas Grains, as well as Honey Spirits. All their Recipes bear the name of a different river or waterway in the Lone Star State.
Don and a few friends were hanging out, back in 2014, and got to talking about the the show ‘Moonshiners’. One of the group mentioned seeing a website that sold stills for a reasonable price. Don pulled the trigger and put up $200 for his share and to get his friends to get on board.
They made some pretty awful stuff at first, as they were learning to use a still. But Don was stubborn and kept researching. He found some ‘tried and true’ grain bills and they ended up being ‘just ok’. So, Don dove into all the things like water chemistry, yeast healt, brewing, distillation, fluid mechanics, chemistry and esterification. He studied books and online, and got up with uncles and his dad (who’s a preacher now), who used to run moonshine back in Tennessee.
They started out with five gallon batches, two at a time to fill their 10 gallon still, and netted about 2 gallons of drinkable spirits. They started getting together one weekend a month.
Then Don really got the bug, and started distilling throughout the month, mostly so they could have fermented mash to run on the group weekend. That turned into mashing four days a week and distilling every weekend. At that point Don had 20K sunk into the hobby, and he hit up his friends and asked them to pitch in for more equipment and grains.
That lost two of the group. They figured Don was delusional and obsessed. But one stuck it out, and he and Don are partners today. Don brought the time and drive, and the friend and partner brought a modern barn and additional cash flow.
Flash forward about two years and they were buying grains from a brew and wine supply store in Houston every week. They had a “sample counter” where customers could leave their brews and wines for others to try and leave notes for feedback.Don started sneaking a bottle of our whiskey in and leaving it, picking up the previous week’s empty bottle.. One day the owner of the store calls out to Don “hey you!” Don stopped, palefaced, and turned around.. .”me?” And he said “yea, you. Are you the one leaving this whiskey every week?”
Don admitted it was he. He asked if they were a legal distillery.. and Don replied “Not exactly..” still unsure where this was going. He replied “I hope you plan to go legal with it. I mean, I don’t care what you do wherever you are doing it, but this stuff needs to be in store shelves.” Don replied “do you think it’s good enough?” He said “good enough? This is the best Bourbon I have ever tasted, and no I don’t mean homemade… I mean THE best.” Don knew Scott Birdwell was a nationally recognized beer judge, and his private spirits collection would make Spec’s jealous.
Don went back to the barn and talked to his friend Jason Wierzbicki about what had happened. They did a LOT more taste testing with people they knew … more than 300 people and they all agreed with Mr. Birdwell.. so Jason and Don decided to start working on going legit. In January of 2019 they scraped up $7500 to send Don to Moonshine University in Louisville, KY for a six-day distilling course. This was so we would be able to answer the question on the license application of “Where did you receive your training “.. with a straight face.
When Don got back from Kentucky, Jason asked him “So… what did we learn?”.. Don replied “that we are already making it better than they are teaching in Kentucky.
The next month, we hired a lawyer and filed their LLC with the State of Texas .. that was February of 2019. They started looking for a location to open the commercial business and Don got word that there was a new Meadery in West Columbia, Texas.. a few miles from his house. He thought they might be able to answer a few questions to help him prepare for introducing himself to the local City Hall and EDC. So he paid them a visit. That is when he met Traci Kuhfuss. She was a co-founder and the master Mead-maker and extremely kind and chock-full of knowledge.. Don left there with more questions than answers, which was incredible, considering she had answered almost everything he had asked… We became friends instantly. I found someone that could talk as much as me and keep it interesting 😎
After things went uphill and downhill and sideways while Covid played out, Jason and Don ended up buying an old mechanic shop in Freeport and remodeling it into their distillery. Traci had been such a huge help that he wanted to do something with Honey as a thank you to her. She had helped with digitizing their label designs, but when Don decided to make a honey brandy and name it Honey Creek… it came out great, but then he got the idea to age it on Amburana Wood, something else Traci had introduced him to.. the result was amazing.
Their selection consists of several well proven proprietary Bourbon, Sour, and Sweet Mash Whiskies…as well as a unique spirit they like to call “Indian Corn Whiskey”, or Neches for short. They also offer several Texas-grown wine brandies and honey spirit, as well as vodka, rum, and gin.Texas Rivers now has five legal labels, and are in distribution in about 16 Total Wines and 22 Specs stores all over the state of Texas.
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Show links and notes
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