Skip to main content

You Need to Get Your Hands on This Bourbon Blending Kit

home made cinnamon whiskey
Image used with permission by copyright holder
While some kids dream of making it to the majors and hitting that series-winning homerun with a full count in the bottom of the ninth of Game 7, some others—the ones that follow George Bernard Shaw’s line of thinking that whiskey is liquid sunshine—dream of other things. Greater things, you might say, like working with whiskey.  Now, thanks to Timber Creek Distillery’s bourbon blending kit, you get to do just that.

Timber Creek, located on the Florida panhandle about an hour north of Destin, recently introduced the world’s first bourbon blending kit. The special edition bourbon blending kit comes with four 100-percent single grain whiskies (corn, wheat, black rye, and barley whiskies) for you to work with in an attempt to become like some of the great Master Blenders of the whisk(e)y world. Each whiskey is 100-Proof and they come in a 750ml bottle (corn) and 375ml bottles (wheat, black rye, and barley).

bourbon blending kit
Image used with permission by copyright holder

“We thought this would be a very unique thing we could bring to market for all of the bourbon fanatics and it’s something that has never been done, so we thought that was cool as well,” President of Timber Creek Camden Ford said.

The kit also comes with a graduated blending beaker, a stir rod, a graduated pipette (for exact measurements), a bourbon blending guide, and examples of not only Timber Creek’s bourbon mash bill, but other popular bourbon mash bills for you to experiment with in order to find your favorite bourbon.

“What our kit gives you the ability to do is to taste the different flavor profile of each individual grain and see how each grain contributes to the overall flavor of the bourbon. Corn is sweet, but generic. Wheat is dry. Rye is spicy, and barley really rounds out the whole flavor. By blending different combinations of these grains you really get a sense of which type of Bourbons you like and why. It puts a lot of control back in the hands of the consumer to determine their favorite blend,” Ford said.

Basically, if you’ve ever gone to a distillery and thought, “Hey, I could do that” or “I wish I could be the guy doing that,” now is your chance.

The bourbon blending kit retails for $239.99 and can be purchased here. In addition to the bourbon blending kit, Timber Creek also makes a vodka, four types of rum (clear, dark, coffee, and apple pie), two bourbons, and a rye whiskey made from Florida 401 black rye—a grain only grown in the Sunshine State.

Editors' Recommendations

Sam Slaughter
Sam Slaughter was the Food and Drink Editor for The Manual. Born and raised in New Jersey, he’s called the South home for…
The 10 best rosé wines that everyone should drink
It's time to finally try rosé
Rose wine glasses

Rosé rules -- no ifs, ands, or buts. You’ve most definitely seen dudes drinking rosé, with the pink wine sold in forties. Chances are, you’ve heard the term “brosé” at least once or twice in your life. Heck, people are cooking with rosé. Can you believe that? It's a sweet wine worth talking about.

All this talk about the drink prompted us to go on a quest to find the most exceptional ones this rosé season. With plenty of great options in the market, we chose to narrow down our list to these best rosé wines for your next hot date, guys' night, or solo Netflix binge. Still reluctant to try this magical wine? We listed seven reasons why you should start drinking rosé.
Best rosé wines

Read more
How to start your own home bar: the essential spirits
Home Bar

When you start getting into cocktails, drinking them is only half the fun -- making them is part of the appeal too. If you start making your own drinks at home, you'll soon find that you can often create better or more interesting drinks than what you're served in most bars. And even better, making drinks for other people is a great way to try out new combinations, learn about spirits, and make your friends and family happy too.

However, moving beyond the simple spirit plus mixer style of drinks which most people make at home and into the world of cocktails means that you'll need a wider array of spirits on hand than you might be used to. It can take some time and research to build up a well stocked bar, and choosing high quality spirits isn't a cheap endeavor. It's worth it, though, for the pleasure of being able to try out classic cocktail recipes and experiment with making up your own creations too.

Read more
You’re overlooking the most important ingredient in your cocktail
Steel Hibiscus cocktail.

When you list off the most important parts of making a good cocktail your mind likely goes immediately to good ingredients: quality spirits, freshly squeezed citrus juices, and well-matched mixers. You might also consider the importance of using the right tools, like getting a proper mixing glass so your stirred drinks can be properly incorporated, or a good strainer so that there aren't little shards of ice in your cocktails. And then there are the fun additions like elaborate garnishes, bitters, or home-made syrups which can add a personal touch to your drinks.
All of those things are important, absolutely. However I think there's one ingredient that can make or break a good cocktail, and it's something many drinkers don't ever stop to consider. It's the humble but vital ingredient of ice.

Why ice is so important
In mixed drinks like a gin and tonic or a screwdriver, ice is added to the drink primarily to chill it down to a pleasing temperature. That's a topic we'll come back to. But in cocktails which are shaken or stirred, ice is far more important than that. Cocktails are typically composed of between around 20 to 30 percent water, and this water comes from the ice used in the preparation process.
When you stir ingredients in a mixing glass or shake them in a shaker with ice, you are chipping away small pieces of the ice so that it dissolves and blends with your other ingredients. You might imagine that water doesn't make much of a difference to taste, being tasteless itself. But it's vital in opening up the flavors of other ingredients. That's why many whiskey drinkers like to add a dash of water to their whiskey when they drink it neat.
If you're ever in doubt of how important water is to cocktails, it's worth trying to make a drink with no ice. Even if you mix up the ideal ratios for a drink that you love and put it into the freezer so that it gets to the chilled temperature that you usually enjoy it at, if you sip it you'll find that your drink tastes harsh, unbalanced, and incomplete. Even for special room temperature cocktails like those designed to be drunk from a flask, you'll generally find water being added at a rate of around 30%.
When you make your cocktails you should be sure to stir for a long time – around 30 seconds is a good start – or to shake for a good while too – I typically do around 12 to 15 seconds – in order to melt enough ice to get plenty of water into your cocktail. Despite what you might imagine, this won't make the cocktail taste watery but will rather make the flavors stand out more as well as often improving the mouthfeel of the drink. A good rule of thumb is to mix or shake until the vessel is cold to the touch. That means your ingredients are sufficiently incorporated with the ice.

Read more