Tasting notes

nose

rich vanilla, caramel and charred oak with roasted peanut, cocoa and cinnamon

palate

big and viscous; brown sugar, toffee, milk chocolate and dark berry jam with leathery oak spice

finish

long and hot; peanut brittle, clove and oak tannin with lingering sweetness

Mash bill

Beam's traditional corn-forward bourbon mash with rye and malted barley, fermented with the family yeast strain. Beam does not publish the percentages for Booker's.

Why it's craft

Booker's is bottled straight from the barrel, uncut and unfiltered, at whatever strength each batch reaches; the 2026 batches have run from 124.4 to 129.1 proof. Booker Noe, Jim Beam's grandson and longtime master distiller, created it as a bourbon he first gave to friends. Each batch is named for a story from his life, marries barrels from several production dates and warehouses, and prints its exact age and warehouse breakdown on the label. Beam is owned by Suntory Global Spirits, so this is a large corporate house, not an independent one.