Onyx & Amber’s Guest Blender Series #1 Earns Double Platinum at ASCOT Awards
Guest Blender Series #1 Double Platinum Winner
Guest Blender Ryan Negley’s 7–12 Year Bourbon Blend receives the competition’s highest honor.
DENVER, CO, UNITED STATES, May 26, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Onyx & Amber today announced that its Guest Blender Series #1, a 7–12 Year Bourbon Blend crafted by Colorado spirits veteran Ryan Negley, has been awarded Double Platinum at the 2026 ASCOT Awards in the Blend of Straight Bourbon category — the competition’s highest medal tier, reserved for entries that earn top marks from every judge on the panel. The recognition adds to the brand’s growing award profile in its debut year and brings unanimous validation to a blend that, by design, will never be made again.
“Double Platinum means the room agreed — every judge, tasting blind, no brand name on the bottle,” said Benjamin Rosen, founder of Onyx & Amber. “Ryan blended this from nine barrels that no longer exist. What they tasted is something that can’t be made again — and what’s in your glass will tell you exactly why that matters.”
A collaboration rooted in Colorado’s whiskey community
Ryan Negley is one of the most respected figures in the Colorado distilling world. A co-founder of the Denver Whiskey Club in 2010, he brings more than 12 years of craft distilling experience to his work, with past roles at Boulder Spirits, Deerhammer Distilling, and Peach Street Distillers. He is a specialist in award-winning blending techniques.
The Guest Blender Series was created by Onyx & Amber to bring outside perspectives to its barrel inventory — inviting accomplished blenders to work with the brand’s sourced and Colorado-aged whiskeys and create something that could only exist once, shaped by their palate and Colorado’s conditions in equal measure. Each expression is a one-time collaboration. When the barrels are gone, the blend is gone with them.
Series #1 was blended from nine barrels of 7–12 Year sourced bourbon, aged in Colorado, where barometric pressure swings and dry mountain air concentrate and deepen the spirit over time. The result reflects both Negley’s palate and what Colorado’s climate does to a barrel — richer, more viscous, and more layered than the same distillate aged anywhere else.
About Double Platinum
At the ASCOT Awards, Double Platinum is the highest medal tier awarded by the judging panels. Unlike a standard Platinum medal, Double Platinum requires outstanding performance that earns top marks from all judges. The competition is blind-judged — no brand names, no labels, no context. Just the spirit, assessed on its own merits. Created by spirits personality and veteran tasting judge Fred Minnick, ASCOT is the industry’s fastest-growing spirits competition.
Availability
Guest Blender Series #1 is a limited release and is currently sold out, with batch #2 slated for July. For current availability and purchasing information, visit onyxandamber.com.
About Onyx & Amber
Onyx & Amber is a Colorado-based whiskey brand built on a decade of genuine immersion in the whiskey community. Founded by Benjamin Rosen — who spent ten years conducting over 150 single-barrel selections and raising more than $500,000 for charity through the Colorado Bourbon & Rye Collectors group — the brand was created around a specific discovery: no one was doing what Onyx & Amber does — sourcing exceptional, already-aged whiskey and finishing it in Colorado, where the climate transforms it into something that can’t be made anywhere else. And the barrel selection experience that enthusiasts once loved had quietly disappeared after COVID. Onyx & Amber was built to bring both to market.
Onyx & Amber sources exceptional whiskey from Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio, and brings it to Denver, Colorado, where barometric pressure swings and dry mountain air create a richness and depth that can’t be replicated anywhere else. The brand operates on three principles: transparency (tell customers exactly what they’re drinking), patience (nothing leaves until it’s ready), and discovery (embrace variance, not consistency).
Based in Denver, Colorado, with appointment-only Kentucky experiences now open in Louisville. No reruns — every release is a one-time expression. For more information, visit onyxandamber.com.
Benjamin Rosen
Onyx and Amber
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