Texas has a long-standing good reputation as a whiskey- and tequila-drinking state, but only in this century have Texans begun to make respectable liquor. At least ten Texas-owned spirits producers are now able to put out bottles of booze that compete with the best liquors on the market.

Just to make sure it's not Texas pride talking, I enlisted the help of an objective observer: Neal MacDonald of Proof66.com, an Illinois-based website that collects international spirit competition awards and professional reviews and puts them together to make a remarkably good rating system. The results are in no particular order.