Every Recipe Requires Tools

A Way to Hold It

First, you need an empty container. If you read my Ultimate Guide to the Types of Whiskey for Beginners, that word “container” should throw up some flags for you. We are talking about an infinity “bottle” but the reality is you can use whatever you want. Make sure that it’s easy for you to add, sample, and seal it.

An cheap glass bottle, a fancy decanter, or another whiskey bottle you just emptied all will do the trick. Heck, you don’t even have to have finished it. Leave some in there. Let that be your first or base whiskey for your infinity bottle. If you want to be precise, make sure you know how much that is.

Back to that word “container”, it doesn’t have to be a bottle at all. You can use a small barrel if you want to impart your own barrel impact. If you search on Amazon, you can find small casks there or directly from a retailer’s website. You can even buy a used barrel from a distillery if you can find one that’s selling them. There are other things to consider about cask care but that will be another topic for another time.

How a barrel impacts flavor is another fairly complex topic. Again, another topic for another time.

If this is your first infinity bottle project, I definitely recommend sticking with a bottle. A glass bottle environment is much more controllable than a barrel.

A Way to Add to It

Just like any other recipe, managing your proportions is important. Make sure you have something to measure what you’re adding and what you’re sampling. Use whatever you want here as well. I recommend using a typical jigger with 1 ounce on one end and 2 ounces on the other. Having a way to measure a half ounce can also be beneficial. That will depend on how you decide to manage your portions and proportions. Adding and sampling in 1 to 2 ounce increments is best unless you want to add an Islay Scotch. More on that later.

Also, a funnel. This one doesn’t really need an explanation. Don’t pour your whiskey everywhere trying to pour from your measurement vessel directly into a bottle. Use a funnel.

A Way to Sample It

This brings us to the next item you need, a glass to enjoy your sample. I recommend a tulip-shaped glass like a Glencairn for optimal whiskey nosing and exploration. Other tulip-shaped options are an official Kentucky Bourbon Trail glass or a brandy snifter. You can find other versions of the same idea. These options also keep in line with the idea of adding and sampling in 1 to 2 ounce intervals. The “perfect” pour in a Glencairn is 1.5 ounces. If you’re not into all that, a rocks glass works just fine.

I would at least recommend a smaller glass. That way, you’re 1 to 2 ounce sample doesn’t get lost being spread across the bottom of a wide glass. You’ll risk getting no vapors to your nose and it’ll just taste generic. All your hard blending work will be for naught.

Deciding What You Want Out of It

Have a plan even if it’s just a basic one. How you interact with your bottle depends on your end goal. What do you want to get out of it? The overall question to ask yourself is “What style of whiskey do I want to make?”. This can be as free or strict as you’d like.

• Do you want to wing it by only adding whiskey that adds to the direction you want to go?
• Do you want to keep it as a bourbon blend so that you can still call it a bourbon?
• You can choose to only include single malts regardless of the country of origin.
• Maybe keep it above or below 100 proof.
• You can also just add little of every bottle you buy and just wing it to see how it goes.
• Try going the true infinity bottle route by just adding and sampling from the same bottle.
• Stop once it’s full, drink it until it’s empty, and start over.
• Pause adding more once you’ve landed on a good flavor profile so that you can enjoy the whole bottle.
• Perhaps you’ll just enjoy some of the bottle and resume blending when you’re ready.

You’re the Master Blender of your own bottle. Have fun with it. Experiment. Explore.

Pro Tips

Give it Time

When I want to sample my bottle, I typically wait until the next day after adding something new. If you taste it immediately, you’ll get different flavors than if you’re patient and allow the whiskey time to marry with what is already in your bottle.

Be Careful with Islays

You might be tempted to add some smoky, briny flavors from an Islay Scotch like Ardbeg, Laphroig, or Lagavulin. If you do, add much less than you would any other whiskey, at least at first. You can always add more but you can’t take it out. Those flavors carry. Just ounce can take over the whole bottle. I was successful adding a half ounce of an Islay to a blend on non-Islays. An ounce essentially erased all other flavors. If you’re blending Islays, that’s a different story.

Too Many Good Things

Too many different kinds of whiskey in the same bottle blends to be generic.

Imagine every whiskey as a word cloud. Imagine some of the smaller words (flavors) disappearing from each whiskey each time it’s blended. New flavors might be created. One or two existing ones might be enhanced (enlarged in the word cloud). But, more words disappear than are created or enhanced. Eventually, you’re left with the biggest common words like caramel or fruit. You won’t be able to distinguish if it’s a hard candy sugar sweetness or a fruit sweetness anymore, for example. For this reason, I like to eventually drink the bottle down and essentially start over whether it’s from empty or from 2 ounces left behind to be blended into the next project.

Sometimes It Just Doesn’t Turn Out

I’ve experienced what I mentioned above once before. Too many whiskeys left me with a generic blend that just wasn’t great. What did I do with it? I made Old Fashioneds.

Make some whiskey sours, hot toddies, rusty nails, or a boulevardier. Throw it in some apple cider. Spike your egg nog at Christmas time. It’ll be good in something. Take the time to get good at some whiskey cocktails. I’ve actually learned a quite a bit about whiskey flavors by trying different ones in different cocktails. It gives you a chance to see what comes through when other flavors are present. The point is that you don’t have to pour it out…unless it’s Canadian.

Obviously, I’m kidding…mostly.

Keep a Log

If you’re interested in learning how you got the flavors you got, track what whiskey you’ve added. Track how much of each and when. Track when and how much you’ve sampled. Adding 2 ounces of whiskey to a 6-ounce infinity bottle is different than adding it to a nearly-full bottle.

You can track it in a notebook, a spreadsheet, or the notes app on your phone. There are a few of infinity bottle apps available for download. I’ve tried each of these and they’re all pretty good depending on what you want it to do. Some are pretty cool and can even do some calculations for you.

Sometimes Old School is Better

I found it hard to track consistently with those methods. The notes app is not built for that kind of data entry. A spreadsheet on a computer or mobile device starts to get annoying. It’s tedious on a small screen and I don’t want to open my laptop every time. Frankly, I didn’t want a screen at all. It’s one thing that I can do without having to put my face in a screen.

My preference was the tried-and-true notebook. But just like the notes app, it’s not structured for data entry unless I made it. My solution was to create a dedicated Infinity Bottle Log Book. You can list the distillery, the whiskey, and the amount added and/or sampled. When I wanted to track more, I created a second version of the log book. It’s laid out in a way that helps you track and calculate the alcohol content in your infinity bottle. Both are available on Amazon for less than $10 each.

For tracking and evaluating tasting and nosing notes, I made the Infinity Bottle Tasting Journal. That’s under $10 too. You can even use that to write more abstract notes as you sample. Longer-form notes, descriptions, or ideas about where to go next.

Explore, experiment, and create something great!