Every December, the same problem hits a lot of guys: you’ve got a brother-in-law who already owns every tool known to man, a boss who pretends he doesn’t want anything, and a fishing buddy who swears he’s happy with a six-pack. Then you remember the one thing they never turn down—a really good bottle of bourbon. This year there’s a Kentucky distillery making that idea even better. J. Mattingly 1845 out of Frankfort is bringing back their custom bourbon program for the third holiday season, and they’ve knocked the price down to $99.50 a bottle for Black Friday. That’s sixty bucks off the regular tag, and it still lands on the doorstep before Christmas if you pull the trigger by December 15.
Here’s how it works. You sit down with a cup of coffee (or something stronger), go to their website, and build the exact bottle you want to give. Start with their award-winning double-staved bourbon or rye—stuff that just took Double Platinum at the 2025 ASCOT Awards and Gold in New Orleans this year. They let you pick the recipe, tweak the proof if you want, write whatever you darn well please on the label, and choose the color of the wax dip on top. When you’re done, the crew at J. Mattingly hand-bottles it, slaps your custom label on, boxes it up nice, and ships it straight to whoever’s name is on your list. No wrapping required.
Harry Richart IV, the president out there, puts it plain: “The custom bourbon bottles from J. Mattingly 1845 make the perfect gift for bourbon aficionados and those hard-to-buy-for people on your holiday list. It’s so easy to go online, choose your recipe and what you want your label to say, and we’ll craft it and have it delivered to your door.”
He’s not exaggerating. Guys have been putting stuff on these labels like “Dad’s Private Reserve – Touch It and Die,” “2025 Deer Camp Champion,” or just the guy’s name with the year he finally retired. One fellow ordered a bottle every year for his four sons with the score of the UK-UL game on the label—winner gets the bottle at Christmas dinner. Another company orders twenty-five bottles every December with each employee’s years of service printed right on the front. The bottle turns into a keepsake long after the bourbon’s gone.
The whiskey itself isn’t some thrown-together private label either. They use what they call double-staved bourbon and rye. Normal barrels get staves that are toasted and charred once. J. Mattingly slides extra heavily charred oak staves into each barrel at a specific point while it’s aging. That extra wood pulls out deeper vanilla, caramel, and baking-spice notes without the harshness you sometimes get from over-oaking. Judges apparently agree—it’s the kind of pour that makes a guy lean back in his chair, take a slow sip, and say nothing for ten seconds because he’s too busy enjoying it.
The Mattingly name goes way back in Kentucky. The family started distilling in 1845 when John Graves Mattingly opened Registered Distillery #2 down in Marion County—some folks argue it was the very first officially registered distillery in the state. Over the decades Mattinglys helped build or run at least nine different plants and rubbed shoulders with legends like the Browns, the Willetts, and the Samuels. Jeff Mattingly picked the torch back up in 2010, and now his son Cameron runs production day-to-day in Frankfort. Walking into their distillery feels like stepping into a piece of bourbon history that still smells like new make coming off the still.
You can do the whole thing online at jmattingly1845.com or drive over to Frankfort and blend your own bottle right at the bar if you’re the hands-on type. They ship to 46 states, and if you’re still stumped on what to get somebody, they sell gift cards for the custom experience too. A lot of wives and secretaries snap those up for the guy who’s impossible to shop for.
At $99.50 delivered for a 750 ml bottle of Double Platinum, hand-labeled Kentucky bourbon, it’s hard to find anything that says “I thought about this” quite as loud. One bottle under the tree beats another tie, another gadget he’ll never use, or another gift card he loses in his truck. This one gets opened Christmas night, passed around the living room, and twenty years from now somebody’s still got that empty bottle on a shelf with a story behind it.
If you’ve got a bourbon drinker on your list—or you are the bourbon drinker on somebody else’s list—this might be the year to stop guessing and start building something they’ll actually remember. Deadline for Christmas delivery is December 15. After that, the elves in Frankfort get a little too busy promising miracles.
