Jim Beam’s New Booker’s Bourbon Is a Tribute to a Legendary Master Distiller
It’s not that the Kentucky bourbon industry is devoid of competition and rivalry. It’s just that the old guys that have been in the business long enough go far back and have been through so many tough times that their friendships supersede achieving brand dominance. For the most part. Case in point is the new Booker’s Bourbon, which seventh-generation Jim Beam master distiller Fred Noe decided to name after another industry legend, Wild Turkey master distiller Jimmy Russell.
I had a chance to interview Fred about the new Booker’s batch, which he believes is the first one to be named after someone outside of the extended Beam family or who has worked at the distillery. Booker’s is the OG member of the Jim Beam Small Batch Collection, an uncut and unfiltered bourbon that Fred’s father Booker Noe created in the late ’80s. It comes out in four (sometimes three) batches per year, and while each is different the whiskey is usually aged between six and seven years, and the proof usually falls in the mid-120s, which is strong but nowhere near hazmat levels.
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The latest, which is the last of the year, is called Jimmy’s Batch. I asked Fred why he decided to name it after the elder Russell (whose son, Eddie, is the other Wild Turkey master distiller). He told me he really wanted to tie it back to his father and the bourbon’s namesake, who was very close to Russell back in the day through good times and bad. “Jimmy and dad were almost like brothers in this industry,” he said. “When dad passed, Jimmy and me probably shed more tears together than anybody else. When I started traveling, Jimmy welcomed me into the fold of the bourbon guys and took me under his wing, and I kind of called him my second dad.”
According to Fred, people are still surprised to hear that he and Jimmy and Eddie Russell are all friends and not competitors, but that’s just the way it’s always been. “I always laugh and say the sales guys on the street—that’s competition,” he said. “But people like Parker Beam, Jimmy, Elmer T. Lee, Dad—those guys had close friendships because bourbon was not doing so well in the ’60s and ’70s. I call them the elder statesmen of the bourbon industry. Those guys rekindled the fire under the bourbon category.” Fred is proud to see that these relationships have continued on to the younger generation, and his son Freddie and Eddie’s son Bruce are also friends.
Jimmy’s Batch is a tasty bourbon, although perhaps not as good as the last, Master Distiller’s Batch, which was one of the best in recent years. The whiskey was aged for seven years, eight months, and 19 days, and bottled at 125.8 proof—both comfortably in the mid-range of Booker’s releases. For the detail oriented, the barrel makeup is as follows: 12 percent came from the fifth floor of seven-story warehouse Z, 20 percent came from the fifth floor of seven-story warehouse 1, 46 percent came from the third floor of seven-story warehouse 3, and 22 percent came from the fourth floor of seven-story warehouse Q. The position of the barrels is important, because the casks selected for Booker’s always come from the center of floors that are not too high, which is crucial in developing the whiskey’s flavor. On the palate here, you’ll find big notes of vanilla, tobacco, leather, oak, and cinnamon, with a nice splash of heat on the finish.
Fred ended our conversation with a story about one of the first trips he took with Jimmy after his father had passed. They were in Frankfurt, Germany for a whiskey festival, and decided to open up a couple of bottles of Wild Turkey to celebrate Jimmy’s birthday. The Europeans in attendance were understandably impressed with the amount of bourbon the two were able to knock back. “Jimmy tells that story a lot, but he likes to spin it and say that I drank all the Wild Turkey at the bar, and I was late for breakfast the next morning,” he laughed. “Trust me, it wasn’t just me, I had some help. That’s a story I’ll never forget, because we were so far from home, but it was just him and me sitting together at the bar telling stories.” In a way, this new Booker’s bourbon is another one of those stories.
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