“Infinity Bottles” Are the Whiskey-Nerd Hobby You Need in Your Life

As I write this, I’m sipping on a rum that’s not quite like any other I’ve had before. It’s funky and tropical on the nose, with notes of banana bread and fermented fruit. The palate is slightly sweet with vanilla, but also hot and high-proof, and hints of cinnamon and spice linger on the finish. If you’d like to try it, I’m afraid you’re out of luck: this rum exists only in my apartment, and it will taste different the next time I sample it, too.

The rum was poured from my favorite of my “infinity bottles.” The infinity bottle is a trend that has taken hold among spirits nerds as a way of creating a unique blend at home. The idea is pretty simple: You take an empty bottle and start creating your own personal blend of a chosen spirit, typically a whiskey. Then you keep adding to it over time. If you have an infinity bottle of bourbons, for example, you might drink some of it one night and then top it off with something new, creating a blend that continually evolves in the bottle.

The concept has been traced back to a 2012 YouTube video by Ralphy Mitchell, who compared it to the solera system of ageing sherry. The key to a solera is that it never runs empty: When a sherrymaker withdraws some wine for bottling, he tops the barrel off with sherry from a younger barrel. Individual solera systems can go back decades, growing more complex with time. You probably don’t have room for a chain of barrels in your own home, but you can have fun creating a similar effect within a single bottle.

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