Once a year, pandemics withstanding, the Texas whiskey community gets together to mingle, gameplan, and present their latest offerings to over 1,200 people at the Texas Whiskey Festival in Austin. Jake Clements, founder of the festival and Director of the Texas Whiskey Trail, started the event five years ago with 11 distilleries and a desire to showcase Texas whiskey in a way that had never been done before.

“Our panel of judges smell and taste their way through each whiskey, rating the aroma, taste complexity, and finish,” Jake Clements, Texas Whiskey Festival’s co-founder, said in a statement. “These are their winners, but remember the best whiskey is the one you like.”

“Our panel of judges smell and taste their way through each whiskey, rating the aroma, taste complexity, and finish,” said Texas Whiskey Festival Co-Founder Jake Clements in a prepared statement. “These are their winners, but remember the best whiskey is the one you like.”

San Antonians who love Texas-made booze can now plan for the 5th Annual Texas Whiskey Festival, which will take place May 13-14 at the picturesque Star Hill Ranch, just outside Austin.

Daniel and Rex review my first Tejas collaboration with Ranger Creek. They give me a little grief (I would expect nothing less) and ultimately give credit to Austin Eastciders, LOL.

San Antonio’s Ranger Creek Distillery released this limited-edition bourbon as the first collaboration in the Tejas series, a project dreamed up by Texas Whiskey Festival cofounder Jake Clements that aims to create unique offerings to showcase the methods and character of distillers across the state. Each bottling will be a limited release available only through the respective distiller.

Collaboration is often a really good thing when it comes to multiple partners going in on the development and production of a new whiskey expression. In Texas, this has taken the form of a partnership between the Texas Whiskey Festival (which I was a judge at earlier this year) and Texan distillery Ranger Creek to create a rye whiskey finished in a cider cask from a local cidery.

Whisky fan Jake Clements, his wife Michelle and business partner Clayton Corn co-founded the Texas Whiskey Festival in 2017 out of their joy of whiskey. The initial idea came about over drinks at a SXSW networking event in March of 2017. “We started naming off different Texas Whiskeys we had tried and decided we could put on an event with just Texas Whiskey,” says Clements.

Earlier this year, Himstedt, Garrison, Phelps, and many of the other Texas whiskey distillers had gathered at the Star Hill Ranch in Northwest Austin on the evening before the second Texas Whiskey Festival. ….A decade into Texas’s whiskey experiment, Himstedt could see that an industry and community had blossomed.

There's no doubt about it: Texas makes whiskey that can hold its own against the legacy juice of Kentucky. But don't take our word for it. Try a variety of Texas-produced bourbon, rye, single-malt and other whiskeys next month at the returning Texas Whiskey Festival — which was apparently so successful last year that a change in venue was needed.

I didn’t know this – I don’t keep tabs on the potent potable scene in this town – until I was assigned to cover Jake Clements’ inaugural Texas Whiskey Festival a couple months ago.

These days, you don’t have to go outside Texas to get great whiskey. And this Saturday, you don’t have to go outside Austin – or even beyond the welcoming space of the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum – to get many of the great whiskeys that the Lone Star State has to offer.

Andalusia is just one of many up-and-coming spirit companies to open in the past several years in the state. For that reason, the Texas Whiskey Festival was created. "We want to educate and get more people interested in Texas whiskey," Texas Whiskey Festival co-founder Jake Clements said.

The Texas Whiskey Festival is an event for people who love whiskey and those that make it.