Booker’s Bourbon has always been, and continues to be, an interesting proposition when it comes to determining what “good value” represents in the American bourbon whiskey world. Jim Beam as a company has the scale to be able to offer some absolutely fantastic values in general–look no further than the ever-present Knob Creek Small Batch, which gives you a 9-year age statement and 100 proof strength every day of the week for a mere $40 or so. Booker’s, on the other hand, doesn’t have that more advanced age statement to fall back on, and when its MSRP first climbed to $90 (it’s now roughly $100) a number of years back, a sizeable segment of the whiskey market rebelled at the idea. What this 6-7 year expression has is raw power, but how much should cask strength really be worth at the end of the day to the average drinker? You end up in a value proposition where you’re comparing the admittedly great value of say, Knob Creek 12 Year ($70) with the average Booker’s batch at $100. The only way Booker’s can truly compare is by dialing up the volume of flavor in direct correlation with the rising proof point, and thankfully a batch like 2024’s new Beam House Batch doesn’t have much trouble doing that.
This is the second batch of Booker’s for 2024, following the earlier release of the Springfield Batch. It continues the trend of Booker’s releases bearing marginally older age statements: It used to be common for Booker’s to be 6 years and change, but every release since the end of 2022 (Pinkie’s Batch) has subsequently been at least 7 years. Not a huge difference in theory, but at the end of the day it seems like the creeping maturity has been good for the series. Likewise, in terms of the value we were talking about, the rapid increases in bourbon pricing have had the effect of making Booker’s seem like a relatively better value now than it was a few years ago. Turns out that when the entire industry’s costs go through the roof and everyone is raising prices as a result, merely raising yours less than others begins to look generous.
The official age for the Beam House Batch, named after the house occupied by Booker Noe and then current Master Distiller Fred Noe, is 7 years, 2 months and 22 days, and it was bottled at a cask strength of 62.3% ABV (124.6 proof). It was pulled from Beam warehouses Z, 3, Q and H. Current MSRP is officially $100, though I’m hearing that it’s more like $110 from some retailers, so your experience may differ.
With that said, let’s get into tasting this latest core cask strength bourbon expression from Beam and see if this is one of those Booker’s batches that will get people talking.