Jim Beam is one of the large names of bourbon, so there is no surprise to find a large man behind it all. Booker Noe is not just physically huge, he is one of the foundation stones of the modern industry. Booker is Jim’s grandson & still lives in Jim’s ancient home in Bardstown.
Talk to him & you are tapping straight into the history of bourbon itself.
Today, Jim Beam is the earth’s largest tradeing bourbon, but in 1934 stuff were not so rosy. Prohibition had been in force for thirteen years, & there was no stock left. To start up once more would be costly & risky. But this did not deter Jim who, aged 70, constructed a new distillery in Clermont in just 120 days. What other might a Beam do? Whiskey making runs for in their veins. After all, Booker’s great-great-great grandfather Jacob Beam began making whiskey commercially in 1795.
This was the distilling metropolis of the world earlier it was put out of job by the government,’ states Booker. ‘Why did he start it up again? Remember, he had been in the whiskey job for 40 years earlier Prohibition. Beams have today been making bourbon for 205 years.’
Booker has today passed the reins to Jerry Dalton, the premier non-Beam to be decreed master distiller. The truth that he lived in the home straightaway behind Booker’s is decent coincidence. ‘Well, even a unreasoning hog finds an acorn every so often!’ he laughs. For all his modesty, Jerry is a extremely respected distiller and, although reluctant to supply distant too numerous enterprise secrets, will take you intense into the process.
There’s a sequence of special quirks at labor in Beam’s 2 plants, but it’s yeast that Jerry zooms in on. For Scottish distillers, yeast is merely a catalyst that converts sugar to alcoholic beverage & CO2- However, for bourbon distillers it has almost mystical properties & every firm guards its personal strain(s): Beam is still utilising the yeasts propagated by Jim in his kitchen in the 1930s.
‘Different yeasts create another levels of fusel oil, which will in the end have an outcome on the flavour,’ Jerry explains. ‘In ageing, the fusel oils anatomy esters with whatever acids are present. Each yeast will supply another proportions of these fusel oils, so you get another flavour profiles.
When you mix the special yeasts with the higher-than-average per centum of backset (which produces what Jerry calls Beam’s ‘bold’ flavour), & the two-and-a-half times distillation (the vapour from the booze still passes through a thumper earlier being redistilled in the doubler) the key Beam nature is taking shape.
But whenever Jim Beam White Label is the earth’s best-known bourbon, it’s the firm’s little batch rate which is rightly making waves. The four-strong extract is understandable manifest of how complex a spirit bourbon might be, but the one closest to Booker’s heart, not surprisingly, is the one which he selects personally & which carries his name.
‘Booker’s is the only one that is bottled at the same confirmation at which it went into the barrel,’ he says, with appreciable relish. ‘It’s whiskey like it was a hundred years ago’.
If the vogue hasn’t changed, the formulas for certain have. Does today’s high-tech approach of distilling make Jerry less of an creative person & more of a scientist? ‘I’m a bit of both,’ he says. ‘There’s an fine to making bourbon that has developed over 2 hundred years, but I am as well a scientist who needs to find finer styles to shape the procedure & perpetuate the secret behind it all’.
The know-hows might be space-age, but the little batch rate signals a return to a time when bourbon meant big, daring & flavoursome whiskey. ‘People just kinda got distant from flavour,’ muses Booker. ‘After Prohibition they split the confirmation or mixed it to make it go further. Now flavour’s coming back. The industry’s been poorly bunk up, but today it’s rolling again. It’ll be back today that folks are tasting this super-good whiskey. Hell yes, bourbon’s back.
TASTING NOTES
Jim Beam White Label 4-year-old
80proof Lightly oaked, with many airy hot notes. Clean & sound. * *
Small batch rate
Basil Hayden 8-year-old
80proof Light & rye-accented, with enough of lemon & tobacco leaf notes. Clean, with crisp rye mixing it with dark, ripe, nutty fruit. * * *
Baker’s 7-year-old
107proof Richer, with a leather armchair kind of nose & tons of overripe fruit. Slightly biscuity to start with, then good sweet vanilla fruit. * * *
Knob Creek 9-year-old
100proof Rich & sweet with honey, blackberry & spun sugar. Elegant & super-ripe, with a hint of vanilla & many airy cinnamon spice on the finish. * * * * *
Booker’s 7-year-old
126.5proof Amazingly complex without water, for such a powerful Bourbon – & a bit like a grizzly bear dancing. Huge & flavour-packed with raisin, chestnut honey, pitch-black cherry, pepper, cinnamon & toffee. Rich & immensely powerful, mixing orange peel, creme brulee & tobacco/cigar blown by by a hickory wind. Immense. **** *
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