When Marsha Milam first stepped inside a rickhouse, she fell in love with the quiet. Entering the nine-story, gymnasium-sized space packed with aging barrels was, for Milam, “like walking into a church.”
The entrepreneurial scion of the Austin film and music scene was looking for a new challenge, and deep in the heart of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail she found her inspiration. “I was blown away by its singleness of purpose,” she says. “The bourbon was resting – no one was coming in to tell it to be done by 2 p.m. on Friday.”
This rebelliousness in a fast-moving world focused on immediacy captured Milam’s imagination. Soon she was planning her own whiskey church in the sleepy Hill Country haven of Blanco, unaware that her new enterprise would go on to break industry boundaries and elevate Hill Country whiskey to a national and international stage through her collaboration with two of whiskey’s boldest creators. Together with Master Distiller Marlene Holmes and Master Blender Heather Greene, she has brought the flavor of Hill Country terroir to the whiskey world as multi-award-winning Milam & Greene Whiskey.
The brand launched in 2017 as Ben Milam, named for the Texas Revolution hero who also happened to be a distant relative of Marsha Milam. They rebranded in 2019 when Greene came on as co-owner and CEO, the year after Holmes joined as Master Distiller. In the subsequent years, Milam & Greene’s elegant, thoughtful, climate-driven quality whiskies have won them enough accolades to make a shelf sag. They have also snagged Greene Master Blender of the Year at the Women of Whiskey awards in 2023, quickly followed by Marlene Holmes being named Master Distiller of the Year at the Women of Whiskey Awards in 2024. Holmes was inducted into Whisky Magazine’s Hall of Fame at the 2025 World Whiskies Award – one of the first American women and the only U.S. female distiller with this honor. The only distillery to distill, age and blend in Texas using their own Hill Country and Kentucky whiskies plus carefully selected barrels from Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana distillers, Milam & Greene’s focus on flavor, quality and terroir have taken them to the top of the whiskey world.
Picture-postcard Blanco with its wedding-cake courthouse and old-timey town square just minutes from the lazy bends of the Blanco River may not sound like the heart of bourbon innovation, but Milam & Greene’s two-acre property sits barely a mile out of town, in what could be dubbed the Hill Country Whiskey Row, with fellow distilleries Andalusia Whiskey Co. and Real Ale Brewing Co., home to Real Spirits Distilling Co., down the road. The laid-back beauty of the environment fit Milam’s vision perfectly, although it has been other Hill Country attributes that have contributed towards making Milam & Greene’s whiskey so special. “LBJ is from here, and when they made the rules for bourbon [the 1964 Congressional Act codifying its production rules] he was president,” says Milam “Bourbon is not region-specific like Champagne or Tequila so I always think LBJ knew about our Hill Country limestone water in the back of his mind and made sure bourbon could be made in Texas.”
A native Texan and University of Texas graduate, Milam’s many achievements as a producer, creator and businesswoman include cofounding the Austin Film Festival, Marsha Milam Music and the Unplugged at the Grove festival. She was no less ambitious when turning her hand to whiskey and secured the best talent in the business. And after 30 years at Jim Beam, working with industry legends Booker Noe and Pam Heilmann, Marlene Holmes was ready for a change and a challenge. The opportunity to bring her skills and expertise to a boutique Hill Country distillery, where she could experiment on a pot-still system and unleash her creativity, tempted her from her Kentucky farm. Heather Greene, too, was seeking to create something new and different. From setting the bar as the first American woman on the Scotch Malt Whisky Society tasting panel, to writing a successful book, to high-level brand consultancy and blending roles, Greene was ready to pour her knowledge and experience into a brand she could help to shape.
“What attracted me to come to Texas in the first place was the wide open space and the opportunity to experiment with climate and with what Marlene is doing with distilling so we could create something new,” says Greene. “I was intrigued by the idea of blending and batching with a unique system to really express Texan terroir and I had a hunch after 25 years in whiskey that this is what people would be interested in – authenticity and transparency.”
This fitted Marsha Milam’s vision of something that would fly against the traditional industry practice of always using the same mash bill. With two high level industry pros who agreed, the team got to work. “Terroir is more than wind, rain soil – it’s the people,” she says, drawing on her background in music to liken their synergy to playing the guitar. “It’s always the same strings but if you are really good you can create a unique sound. With whiskey it’s the same–some people can find that sweet spot that makes them distinct, they stand out from the rest.” This, she asserts, is Milam & Greene’s strongest attribute.
The personal rapport the three have is as joyful as it is productive. Sharing jokes and finishing each other’s sentences, their energy and passion are infectious. They highlight a shared emphasis on quality, getting things right and being the best. “It has to be great or it’s not worth doing,” says Milam, as Greene concurs.
“I look at whiskey compared to golf, and there no mulligans [do-overs] in whiskey – you have one shot to make a first impression, and that’s what we’ve always stood on,” says Holmes. Another area of strong agreement is their refusal to market themselves as a woman-led company. “We never went out as women,” says Greene emphatically. “We’re going out as a whiskey company that is award winning, that is deserved – we don’t need it.”
“If we’re talking about being women we’re not talking about our whiskey – our whiskey speaks for itself,” Holmes rejoins.
Their distinctive core range speaks to a wide array of fans. The multi-award-winning Port Finished Rye oozes subtle vinous luxury, while the Triple Cask offers deep spiced-fruit flavors. Newer addition Provision offers a lighter touch, while their highly limited Single Barrel range will keep connoisseurs on their toes, tilting into the characteristics of each distinct chosen barrel.
Milam & Greene’s specialty series’ each have their own distinct personality too, almost like concept albums – each of the trio playing their roles, with Milam as entrepreneur/muse, Holmes as Master Distiller/creator and Greene as Master Blender/liquid strategist. Each iteration varies from release to release as Greene tinkers with her proverbial ‘spice rack’ of barrels to tell a story that is “true and authentic to the brand.” Their Wildlife Collection leans into a shared passion for Texan nature, while the Castle Hill series, created during the pandemic, exclusively blends 13 year-old barrels to show off the nuance in their potency. The Unabridged series brings together a wide range of barrels, blended and “Texified” by aging in the Hill Country heat. Holmes likes to drink this from the source. “It’s unedited and unfiltered – the closest thing to thieving whiskey right out the barrel!” she laughs.
The effect of the Texas heat on whiskey’s aging process and flavor and the condition of the barrels has been crucial to M&G’s product development, as has the quality of water from the Blanco River and nearby Canyon Lake, whose journey through porous limestone formations imbues it with excellent purity and clarity. Add a proprietary house yeast and M&G have a smorgasbord of terroir-driven strings to their bow.
As the team ran with their concept, they increasingly noticed how the Hill Country climate changed and developed their distilling and blending processes in unusual and unexpected ways. Holmes’ initial column still used up too much precious Central Texas water and created too much waste, so they swapped it out for a pot still. The result meant that when Greene blended their Texas whiskey with the column still-produced whiskey Holmes was making in Kentucky to ship south, the results were complex, nuanced and unique. “The things that constrict you enable you to find something new,” she says.
Their ultimate ground-breaking new find was released in July 2025. The Answer was the result of a six-year study on the different compounds whiskey profiles acquired from aging in Texas versus in Kentucky. By dividing The Answer – aging half in Texas and the other half in Kentucky – the M&G team were able to definitively demonstrate the way that different terroir affects whiskey aging.
“The difference is not just in the nose and flavors but in the compounds,” explains Greene. “The whiskies were tested in a gas chromatography machine to prove that compounds really are different – this underscores that there really are unique compounds that come out of this environment.” The release party was a Hill Country highlight, packed with enthusiastic drinkers taste-testing the compound differential for themselves in the distillery’s welcoming, clubby taproom and expansive, live oak-shaded beer garden.
With core whiskeys to keep coming back for and new releases, including their latest Wildlife Collection Jackalope, continuing to wow, Milam & Greene is keeping Hill Country whiskey firmly in the spotlight. “We were never going to do what everyone else was doing, and I’m very proud of what we are able to do,” says Greene. As they should be.