Are you able to tell if your food needs salt?
When you eat a pastry or a cookie, can you tell if it needs sugar or perhaps has too much?
If the answer to either of the above questions is yes, then you can blend whisky.
More importantly, you should blend whisky. At home. In your free time.
I told myself I was going to take weekends off when I started writing this blog, but I wanted to share something with you this morning (after texting with whisky friends all night) because it’s not a subject I talk about very often, but should.
I’ll share a secret with you: the three best whiskies in my home bar are not super rare editions that I bought at a store or brought back in a suitcase from abroad. The three best whiskies in my bar are whiskies that I blended for my own personal palate. I took other whiskies that I had purchased, combined them into specific quantities, and married them together to make three whiskies greater than the sum of their parts.
And when I say they’re the best, it’s not even close. The rye whiskey blend in particular is better than any singular rye I can buy on the market right now.
I’m telling you: you can make almost any whisky taste better by adding other whiskies to it. However, it only works if you know what you want. I know exactly what I like, and when I get a bottle that doesn’t deliver what I want, I combine it with another bottle to make it into something I do want.
Not sweet enough? Add a sweeter whisky. Too boring? Add something peaty.
All the time, I hear people say things like this about disappointing bottles: “I’ll just use it for cocktails.” That’s fine.
But if you’re willing to blend it with vermouth or sugar, why not also consider blending it with other whiskies?
That was a rhetorical question, really, because I know the answer. Many drinkers are petrified of “messing up” their booze—serving it in the wrong glass, adding ice or water when they shouldn’t, using the wrong ingredients in a cocktail, etc.
But if you can get over that fear, or the purist’s idea that each whisky in your glass should be unadulterated—that the master blender’s original intent be undisturbed!—then you can really make some magic happen.
I will also say this: I am not a master blender, but I have dabbled throughout my career. I have blended roughly a dozen different projects that have gone into bottle, and depending on who you ask (and who will actually admit it), I may have helped introduce a new blended Hennessy edition to the market back in the day. That being said, I’m not professionally trained. I didn’t read a book. I just started playing around with my booze one day, and found that I enjoyed it.
The point is that you can also blend at home. You don’t need raw materials like cask strength samples or individual barrels. You just need different kinds of whisky.
If you’re still feeling squeamish about ruining your fancy single malts, or your high-end Bourbons, I’ll give you an exercise that hopefully won’t give you a panic attack.
The Diageo Whisky Negroni
There’s a reason the Negroni has become the world’s favorite cocktail over the last decade. Not because it tastes good (which it does), but because anyone can make it. It’s literally foolproof. You cannot mess it up.
It’s just equal parts gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth. You can do 1 oz. + 1 oz. + 1 oz. Or you can increase the portions if you want a larger cocktail.
To that end, I did the same thing last night with my Game of Thrones closeouts from the store. If you’re living under a rock, we’ve got Lagavulin 9 year for $24.99, and the Johnnie Walker editions for $15 each right now. I used the Song of Fire and the White Walker edition because I wanted something with a little smoke and something rather neutral.
IMPORTANT: The White Walker edition on its own is exactly the type of whisky I was mentioning earlier. Rather tame and forgettable on its own, but absolutely perfect as a foundation for your blending. If you feel like tinkering around with whisky blending, I can’t recommend a better starting point, especially for the price right now.
After tinkering around with a few different ideas, I decided to go with a foolproof Negroni ratio on this blend:
1 oz. Lagavulin 9 year + 1 oz. Song of Fire + 1 oz. White Walker. Stir, and serve over ice.
How was it? Fucking amazing. So good that I used my empty 3L Ardbeg to make a larger vatting.
But again, I made a whisky for me, that I enjoy, and that I want to drink—personally.
I like blended whisky. In fact, I’m at the point where I think I like blended whisky more than I like single malts or Bourbon. The best whisky I had in 2019 was the Johnnie Walker Blue “Ghost” Edition with Brora in it. Ever since finishing that bottle I’ve been like a junkie chasing a high I can never reach again.
I could go on forever about this, so I’ll stop here for now.
Play around with your whiskies. Instead of making cocktails, make blends. Marry some rye with some Bourbon. Pour some Macallan into your Dewar’s. Find your sweet spot.
You’ll thank me later.
-David Driscoll