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Bourbon Games Season 1 Episode 1: Arkansas vs. Florida
Gary Penna and Justin Mills led Arkansas to a 40–19 bottle-sales win over Southwest Florida in the Bourbon Games premiere before both teams began blending at Barrel King.
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Last Updated on September 8, 2026 by Justin Jones
BOURBON GAMES · SEASON 1 · EPISODE 1
Arkansas wins the opening challenge, 40–19
The Bourbon Games began with Season 1, Episode 1, bringing the Bourbon Club of Arkansas and Southwest Florida Bourbon Society to Barrel King in Bourbon, Missouri, for a weekend-long competition combining bourbon blending, skill challenges and charity fundraising. The September 4, 2026 premiere introduced the contestants, competition format and scoring system before Arkansas took the first challenge 40–19.
Episode 1 recap. Contains results from the premiere only.
Penna puts the club’s reputation first
Penna and Mills tasted the competition whiskey before asking Bourbon Club of Arkansas members to buy it. Penna said he wanted to be confident in the bottle the club was recommending, even with a sales deadline approaching.
Florida led early, but Arkansas moved ahead and finished with 40 bottles sold to Florida’s 19. The win earned Penna and Mills the preferred rooms at the Bourbon Lodge before both teams began working on their competition blends the following day.
“Winning this first round is not worth losing our reputation.”
— Gary Penna, during the opening sales challenge
How the Bourbon Games work
Under the rules introduced in Episode 1, the teams spend the weekend developing a bourbon blend to present to three judges on Sunday. The final blend is worth up to 50 points, the largest single score in the competition. Four additional challenges are announced: skeet shooting, cornhole, a blind taste-off and trivia challenge, and a single-barrel challenge.
According to the rules explained in the episode, money raised by both teams goes into a shared charity pool. Half is allocated through the final-blend competition, with the other half divided among the remaining challenges.
In an April 23 video reproduced in ArkansasLiquor.com’s April reporting, Penna identified Wounded Warrior Project as the Arkansas team’s chosen charity.
50
Maximum blend points
4
Other challenges
3
Final-blend judges
Charity
Challenge proceeds
Two Arkansas contestants face three from Florida
Gary Penna and Justin Mills represent the Bourbon Club of Arkansas. Southwest Florida Bourbon Society is represented by Jake, Jason and Matt, as introduced in the episode. The two-person Arkansas team and three-person Florida team later take different approaches to evaluating and blending whiskey.
Team Arkansas
Gary Penna
Justin Mills
Penna described BCA as a club of roughly 350 members at the time of filming. He and Mills had previously completed a large blend at Barrel King.
Team Florida
Jake
Jason
Matt
Contestants described Southwest Florida Bourbon Society as having roughly 6,000 members at the time of filming. A Facebook group capture dated September 5, 2026, showed 5,510 members.
Background on the clubs and competition
ArkansasLiquor.com covered the charity barrel challenge in April 2026 and introduced both clubs in its Season 1 preview. The preview also includes details of the finished team blends.
Challenge 1: Sell the barrel
For the opening challenge, each team received its own sales link and could sell up to 100 bottles before an 8 p.m. deadline. The host described the whiskey as a nine-year MGP single barrel selected by Barrel King. The winning team would also receive the better sleeping accommodations at the Bourbon Lodge.
The host’s single-barrel description differs from the custom blend described in ArkansasLiquor.com’s April 24 report. The available accounts do not resolve that discrepancy.
Penna initially held back from promoting the bottle because the club had not selected it. Mills emphasized the charitable purpose and the competition with Florida. After tasting the whiskey, the Arkansas team began its sales push.
0–4
About 15 minutes into sales; Florida leads
15–8
About four hours remain; Arkansas leads
40–19
Final bottle sales; Arkansas wins
Arkansas finishes 21 bottles ahead
Arkansas sold 21 more bottles than Florida and won by more than two to one, despite having the smaller reported club membership. The figures shown during the episode track bottle sales; the membership estimates describe the clubs’ overall size, not the number of buyers reached.
The released episode shows a final count of 40–19. Contemporaneous April coverage reported 40–17; the episode provides the later published tally.
Opening challenge score reveal
Life at the Bourbon Lodge
The teams stayed together at a hunting lodge in the Missouri countryside. With fewer bedrooms than contestants, the opening challenge determined the room assignments: Penna and Mills took the upstairs accommodations, while Florida stayed in the basement.
Contestants described weak or nonexistent cell service, difficulty staying in touch with family and uncertainty about the challenges ahead. At the lodge, they shared meals and bourbon, traded jokes and exchanged phone numbers.
An early Barrel King selection: “The Goat”
An early Barrel King selection appeared during the lodge gathering: The Goat, named after Muhammad Ali and identified in the discussion with the number 24. Participants described the whiskey as roughly six or seven years old and recalled its place in Barrel King’s early selection history.
Day Two: the blending challenge begins
On the second day, Matt Bunch welcomed both teams into the barrel room and outlined the blending requirements. Each final blend had to yield at least 500 bottles and could produce as many as 1,300. The available whiskey ranged from five to 18 years old.
500
Minimum bottles
1,300
Maximum bottles
5 Years
Youngest whiskey
18 Years
Oldest whiskey
The teams tasted whiskey throughout the warehouse, recorded their impressions and claimed barrels by stapling team tags to them. Their task was to combine components into a blend large enough to meet the production requirement.
The teams take different approaches to blending
Penna and Mills drew on a previous Barrel King blend that yielded roughly 520 bottles. They began by looking for a mature bourbon base, then considered younger or different whiskey to develop the middle of the palate and add other flavors. Florida organized its tasting notes in a grid covering aroma, flavor, sweetness, spice and observations such as yeast, tannin and bread.
The Arkansas pair said their shared experience and similar preferences helped them make decisions efficiently. Florida’s contestants argued that differences among three tasters could improve the blend by prompting further discussion and comparison.
Matt Bunch and the barrel room
Blending remains unfinished at the close of Episode 1
Episode 1 ends with both teams still developing their blends. Penna and Mills had identified a base they liked and were working on the middle of the palate and the finish. Florida continued testing its own combinations after choosing a different approach from Arkansas’s earlier Barrel King blend.
Arkansas had secured the opening bottle-sales win. The final-blend judging, worth up to 50 points, was still ahead when the premiere ended.
Sources: Bourbon Games Season 1, Episode 1, published by Mixx Tank; Barrel King’s official series page; and ArkansasLiquor.com’s April coverage linked above.
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Justin Jones
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