Christmas Eve Blending

What do you do when you're sitting around on Christmas Eve Day, wrapping presents, watching old episodes of Arrested Development, and getting supplies ready for tonight's party? I wanted to bring some fun booze over to my family activity tonight, but nothing that I really would miss were we to drink it all.  Then I remembered all those Four Roses barrel samples that I didn't use when we were sampling casks to purchase.  The Small Batch is a bourbon that Four Roses crafts from a few different barrel formulae and I had a more than a handful to choose from.  All I needed was a big empty bottle.

Rather than do a batch of pure cask strength bourbons, I decided to mix a little of the 100 proof in to tone it down a bit.  One bottle of cask strength OBSQ, one bottle of cask strength OESV, one bottle of cask strength OBSV, and a little bit of 100 proof OBSV to top it off at 750ml.  Then I poured it all into a big bowl, filtered out the charcoal with a strainer, and decanted it back into an empty vodka bottle.

Violá! I did taste a little bit just out of curiousity, but 9:45 in the morning isn't really the best time to sample whiskey.  I'll base my blending success on the reaction of my in-laws later tonight.  Hopefully, I will make Jim Rutledge proud.

-David Driscoll