The Perfect Blend

Prepare your lab coats and tasting tubes as we delve into the specifics of advanced blendology!

First solution: Tincup 10 Year Old American Whiskey. Here, a high-rye bourbon distilled and aged in Indiana was combined with a Single Malt distilled and aged in Colorado. Both were then aged in char #3 barrels, then cut with pure Rocky Mountain water before bottling. The resulting liquid shows promising sweet notes that melt on your tongue.

Second solution: Two Stacks The First Cut Irish Whiskey. This perfectly balanced 86-proof compound combines 5 different liquid substances: light & dark grain whiskeys, double & peated malts, and pot-still whiskey. Each component brings its own flavor atom to the molecule, creating a blend that is complex and interesting, but most importantly, highly sippable.

Third solution: Hercules Mulligan Rum & Rye. Flaviar’s very own original ready-to-drink Old Fashioned, this blend combines intricate flavors, unique ingredients, and essential drinkability. In this experiment, American rye whiskeys were married with aged Caribbean rum, then joined by fresh organic ginger. To make it rich and audacious, we added custom-designed bitters at the end of the process - a catalyst that completes this tasteful reaction.

Now it’s time you perform some delicious research on your own! And remember Uncle Flaviar’s law of spirits: “For every sip, there's an equal and opposite desire for another sip.”

Smartass Corner:

1. An intriguing fact about Irish whiskey blends is that they mix two or more styles, yet there are no specific names to differentiate between blends made from malt and grain. A secret in every sip!

2. There are many Irish Whiskey varieties: grain whiskey, malted barley pot-still-distilled, and ‘pure pot-still’ or ‘single pot still’ as it is now officially known. Then there is poitin, one of the first spirits ever made.

3. Bourbon and single malt whiskey differ in their base. Bourbon is corn-based (51% of the grain bill or higher), while single malt uses barley exclusively. When it comes to taste, bourbon tends to be sweeter than single malt. This is because corn has a higher sugar content than malted barley.

4. Successful whiskey blending involves striking a balance between different whiskeys that accentuates each other's flavors. It's like a dance of tastes in a bottle!

5. Dark grains, like roasted barley or wheat, bring forth delightful roasty flavors in whiskey, akin to coffee and chocolate. That’s why roasted malt is the unsung hero of the new whiskey frontier, adding that extra oomph and depth to the creations.

6. In the world of whiskey, water matters—it makes for up to 60% of each bottle! Each distillery has its unique water source, varying from rivers to springs. Interestingly, the water's hardness or softness can influence the whiskey's mouthfeel and flavor. For instance, softer waters generally produce heavier spirits, while harder waters yield lighter, sweeter ones. Now, that's a splash of knowledge to savor with your next sip! 

7. Two Stacks borrows its name from the two chimney stacks of the Dundalk distillery that were so tall that seamen used them as a navigation point.

8. Hercules Mulligan is named after an 18th-century Irish-American tailor-turned-spy and friend of Alexander Hamilton. He ran his tailor shop, a social hub resembling speakeasies where he served drinks to British soldiers. As the drinks loosened their tongues, he gathered vital secrets. Mulligan passed these secrets to George Washington and Hamilton, significantly impacting the Continental Army's course and Washington's life during the American Revolution.

9. During the colonial period, rum from the Caribbean was the popular spirit. However, a British blockade during the war led to the rise of rye whiskey production in New York's outskirts, making these two the quintessential spirits of the era.

10. Born during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hercules Mulligan quickly became one of the fastest-growing ready-to-drink brands in the country.