Dancing Panda Bourbon

Dancing Panda is a Kentucky straight bourbon label, not a distillery. It is a non-distiller producer (NDP): the brand does not operate its own still, but instead selects and bottles aged distillate sourced from established Kentucky distilleries, releasing it under age-stated expressions topped with a collectible golden panda figurine.

History & Heritage

Dancing Panda is an emerging brand with a deliberately narrow public footprint. It carries no substantive official website and communicates primarily through Instagram (@dancingpanda.bourbon), a modern, understated approach to brand building rather than traditional marketing. The label is held by Dancing Panda LLC and marketed as Dancing Panda Spirits, Kentucky. Its visual identity, including the theatrical "big-top" concept and the panda-topped decanter, was developed by the branding agency Caliber Creative, which describes the panda topper as the brand's "star performer." No founding year, ownership details, or company leadership are disclosed in any public source located, and the brand's own materials focus on the product rather than its corporate structure. Because so little is documented, several attributions below rest on retailer listings and independent reviews rather than brand-published records.

The Whiskey

Dancing Panda releases a lineup of age-stated Kentucky straight bourbons that includes 4-year, 8-year, and 10-year expressions. The 8-year and 10-year releases are bottled at 100 proof (50% ABV). One retailer and an independent review both record the 8-year mash bill as 75% corn, 21% rye, and 4% malted barley, indicating a higher-rye character. Reviewers describe the older releases as spice-and-oak-forward and more mature than the younger bottling, with notes of vanilla, caramel, toasted oak, baking spice, dark fruit, and a dry finish. Because Dancing Panda sources from more than one distillery, the profile shifts by age statement rather than following a single house recipe.

Where It Is Made

Dancing Panda does not distill its own whiskey. The distillate is produced at established Kentucky distilleries and later bottled under the Dancing Panda label. Multiple retailer listings state that the 4-year expression is New Riff Distilling distillate, made in Newport, Kentucky. The 10-year expression is reported to be sourced from Heaven Hill Distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky; that attribution comes from an independent reviewer relaying a retailer employee rather than a brand-published statement, so it should be read as reported rather than officially confirmed. In short, the physical whiskey inside a Dancing Panda bottle is made by New Riff (4-year) and, per that reporting, Heaven Hill (10-year), not by Dancing Panda itself.