Bourbon Games Episode 4: Gary and Justin Win the First Bourbon Games for BCA

BOURBON CLUB OF ARKANSAS · BOURBON GAMES · SEASON 1 FINALE

BCA wins the inaugural Bourbon Games

Gary Penna and Justin Mills came to Barrel King with one goal: make a better blend than the Bourbon Club of Arkansas had made before. After three days of competition, a blind final tasting and a deliberation close enough to require a break, the judges told them they had done exactly that—and named BCA the first Bourbon Games champion.

Everything came down to the final blend

Season 1 reached its final day with the Bourbon Club of Arkansas and the Southwest Florida Bourbon Society tied. BCA had swept cornhole and won the single-barrel challenge. Florida had answered with one-point victories in skeet shooting and Matt Madness. None of those results carried into the final decision: whichever club produced the judges’ favorite blend would win the title.

The charity format made the blend especially important. Half of the combined fundraising pool followed the winning blend. The remaining half was divided evenly among the four preliminary challenges, making each worth 12.5 percent of the total. Winning the blend therefore carried four times the charity value of any single side event.

One last morning in the blending room

Both teams had allowed their blends to rest overnight, and both found something different in the tank the next morning. Host Kaynon Castille moved between the rooms as the competitors debated whether to keep adjusting or leave good whiskey alone. The deadline was 1:00 p.m.

Gary and Justin chase the nose

Gary said the BCA blend had settled down beautifully overnight. The palate was where they wanted it, but the nose still needed a little lift. Gary and Justin began testing tiny additions, starting with Wild Turkey. The first sample created the aromatic “pop” Gary wanted and carried into the palate, although Kaynon warned that the change was not an improvement to his taste.

The challenge was familiar to anyone who has worked on a large blend: every addition becomes riskier as the whiskey gets closer to finished. Gary had mapped his barrel selections to their physical positions in the stack so the team could work methodically without losing track of a component. After roughly another hour and a half of iterations, Gary and Justin landed on their final move—about three ounces from what Gary identified as a Stagg MGP barrel.

They gave the tank a final turn, let the addition settle and knew they were done. Justin later described the hardest part as sitting at 99 percent and deciding whether touching the blend again would complete it or damage it.

Southwest Florida refines its bourye

The Southwest Florida Bourbon Society followed a very different path. Jacob Parrish, Jason—whose surname was not identified in the episode—and Matt Haines had chosen to build a bourye, combining bourbon and rye. Their blend had softened overnight, the sweetness was less aggressive and the tobacco character had become easier to find.

Florida entered the final morning with several partially used barrels and enough room to make targeted adjustments. The competitors described the remaining components as the salt and pepper on top. Their final direction included a restrained finishing influence from Pedro Ximénez and Sauternes barrels, intended to soften the whiskey, connect the flavor notes and leave a darker tobacco character on the finish.

Kaynon called the overnight change a night-and-day improvement. The blend that had seemed flat through the mid-palate the previous day had developed more energy and, in his judgment, was close to complete.

Why the Wild Turkey decision stood out

Matt Porter said Wild Turkey had not entered his mind as a blending option. Jason Callori of The Mash and Drum explained the concern: Wild Turkey has a recognizable profile that can transform a whiskey for better or worse, with little middle ground. MGP, by comparison, was a component he and Matt had learned could stretch comfortably across a blend. Kaynon had just tasted BCA’s adjusted sample and agreed that the Wild Turkey trial had changed the whiskey dramatically.

The judges taste both blends blind

Three judges made the final decision without knowing which club had produced either glass. Kaynon ran the room but did not score.

Judge	On-screen credit	Affiliation
Lauren Rogers	Blend Manager	Barrel King
Jarrod Record	Barrel King Co-Founder	Barrel King / Old Road Craft Spirits
Matt W	Wine Expert	Not stated in the episode

Matt W is identified here exactly as the production credited him. The episode did not provide a surname or outside affiliation.

Glass A

The judges found apple, fruit and berry on the nose and independently suspected old MGP. Jarrod rated the nose a nine or ten. Lauren called it soft rather than a shock to the system and said it smelled as though the components had been together forever. “Cohesive” became the panel’s shared description.

Matt W described the palate as a well-constructed bourbon with no spikes, a long finish, sweetness, fruit and earth. Jarrod said he could drink it all day and continued finding something new each time he returned to the glass.

Glass B

The second glass presented a more traditional bourbon nose: caramel, oak char and a little sweet apple, without the red fruit found in A. All three judges preferred A’s nose, but B narrowed the gap on the palate. Matt W called it velvety and noted that its lower apparent heat allowed more flavor to show from beginning to finish. Lauren found tobacco, leather and barrel char.

Air continued to change Glass B. The panel paused, returned to both glasses and ultimately took a break before making its decision. When Kaynon brought everyone back together, all three judges said they had a winner.

The reveal: Glass A belongs to BCA

Gary explained that BCA had arrived intending to recreate Hello Darkness, the club’s earlier sold-out Barrel King blend. That plan changed when several original components were unavailable. Instead of forcing a replica, Gary and Justin committed to following the same general direction with a different set of whiskeys.

The team had stopped the previous night at what Gary called the 502-bottle mark. On the final morning they opened the tank, let it air for about 45 minutes and seriously considered adding nothing. The final three-ounce adjustment supplied the small amount of aromatic lift they believed was missing.

Glass B belongs to Southwest Florida

Florida explained its decision to take the harder route and build a bourye. The team had produced something unexpectedly sweet the day before but needed more volume without losing the profile. Six to eight competing ideas were narrowed into one direction, followed by the small finishing additions that brought the blend together.

What the judges told both clubs

Matt W said he would be happy to own either bottle. He found grape candy and apple on BCA’s nose and praised its complexity. He also credited Florida’s late finishing additions, finding the Sherry and Sauternes influence the team intended.

Jarrod said the decision became closer as both glasses opened. He called BCA’s whiskey extremely complex and, most importantly to Gary and Justin, said it was better than their previous Barrel King blend. The competition had forced BCA outside its comfort zone, and the result was a step forward. He compared Florida’s blend to taking an exceptional old MGP single barrel and finishing it, and was surprised to learn that younger whiskey was part of the build.

Lauren also judged the new BCA blend better than the club’s earlier release and said it blossomed after leaving her palate. Florida delivered char, cherry and tobacco—flavors that aligned closely with her personal preference. Her conclusion was simple: both blends were excellent.

The first Bourbon Games champion: Bourbon Club of Arkansas

Kaynon described the decision as very close and confirmed that the judges had taken a break to make sure they got it right. Then he announced the winner: Gary Penna, Justin Mills and the Bourbon Club of Arkansas.

Justin framed the result around the goal BCA had carried through the competition. The team wanted to beat its own previous work. According to the judges, it did. The trophy mattered, but the verdict that Gary and Justin had made a better whiskey was the result they had been chasing from the beginning.

$11,327.55 raised for charity

The finale’s end card revealed the only dollar figures shown during the series. Together, the two clubs raised $11,327.55.

The final split is 75 percent and 25 percent, exactly what the announced formula produces when one club wins the final blend plus two preliminary challenges and the other club wins the remaining two challenges.

The complete Season 1 record

Event	Episode	Result
Cornhole	2	BCA, 21–17 and 21–1
Single-barrel challenge	2	BCA
Skeet shooting	3	Southwest Florida, 11–10
Matt Madness blind tasting	3	Southwest Florida, 14–13
Final blend	4	BCA

What BCA brings home

BCA leaves Missouri with the inaugural trophy, the larger share of the charity pool for Wounded Warrior Project and a judged verdict that the club improved on its own best work. Gary had said that he was less interested in personal gratification than in making a better product. Justin described the same goal from his side of the table. Episode 4 gave them the answer.

Southwest Florida deserves equal credit for the finish. Its competitors built an ambitious bourye, won two preliminary events by a single point and produced a final whiskey every judge said belonged on the shelf. The result was a real competition between two club programs—not a promotional exhibition with a predetermined ending.

Season 2 revealed

The finale did not end with the trophy. After the Season 1 credits, Mixx Tank revealed the next Bourbon Games matchup: the St. Louis Bourbon Society against the Smoky Mountain Bourbon Society.

St. Louis Bourbon Society

Founded in 2016 under the motto Fellowship in the Spirit, the St. Louis Bourbon Society organizes tastings, meetups, festivals and single-barrel selections across the St. Louis area. With Barrel King roughly 80 miles southwest of the city, St. Louis enters Season 2 as the closest thing the series has had to a hometown club.

Smoky Mountain Bourbon Society

The Smoky Mountain Bourbon Society describes itself as a social club centered on community, camaraderie and education. Its program includes socials, whiskey news and reviews, and club single-barrel selections. The club’s official name uses “Smoky” and singular “Mountain,” which we have preserved here.

Barrel King is also recruiting future clubs. Interested organizations are invited to send a video to [email protected] with the subject line “The Next Bourbon Games Winner.”

Watch the full Bourbon Games story

• Episode 1: BCA wins the opening bottle-sales challenge 40–19
• Episode 2: Gary and Justin sweep cornhole and win the single-barrel challenge
• Episode 3: BCA pushes Florida to two one-point finishes

Sources: Bourbon Games Season 1, Episode 4, produced and published by Mixx Tank; the episode’s description, captions, chapter markers and on-screen graphics; Barrel King’s published Bourbon Games and team information; and the published sites of the St. Louis Bourbon Society and Smoky Mountain Bourbon Society.