Booker's Bourbon "Storyteller Batch" 2023-04

MASTER DISTILLER NOTES

Booker’s “Storyteller Batch” is made up of barrels from four production dates that were aged in four different warehouses. The breakdown of barrel storage for this batch is as follows:

26% came from the 6th floor of 7-story warehouse Z

14% came from the 6th floor of 9-story warehouse H

25% came from the 5th floor of 9-story warehouse G

35% came from the 5th floor of 7-story warehouse 3

The color of “Storyteller Batch” is a rich amber with a golden shine. Sitting in your glass, the scent of a great bourbon fills the room and invites you to further explore the brown sugar aroma. The taste is delightful and well-balanced, with notes of vanilla and wood. I tasted this batch on a drizzly September day. There was a slight chill in the air and it reminded me that fall is just around the corner, and this bourbon has the perfect warm finish for the days to come. A little bit of water further opened the tasting experience for me, but you can enjoy it any way you please. Storyteller Batch is just the way Dad would have wanted it when he created this brand over thirty years ago - I can almost hear him telling one of his great stories while he sips a glass of his own. I hope you enjoy this batch as much as I do!

LABEL INSPIRATION

The fourth release of the Booker’s^® Bourbon 2023 Collection is Booker’s Batch 2023-04 “Storyteller Batch.” This batch is named after the way my dad, Booker Noe, could turn just about anything he talked about into an interesting story.

Dad was a natural storyteller. While out on the road to promote his namesake bourbon, he would tell anyone who would listen about how Booker’s Bourbon came about. Distributors and other industry folks thought Jim Beam hired an actor - that’s how good he was. He told a lot of different stories, but one of his favorites took place during a visit to Chicago. While eating at a nice restaurant, Booker was served a so-called "country ham." However, it didn’t quite match up to his idea of a true, bona fide country ham. So he leaned over to his publicist and right-hand man and asked him to retrieve the ham he had stashed in his trunk for an upcoming Alaska fishing trip. Booker wanted to show the chef what genuine country ham tasted like. After a bit of back and forth, the ham made its way into the restaurant, where Booker generously shared it with both the chef and the other diners. That story always got the whole room laughing.

Booker enjoyed telling stories just as much as he loved making bourbon. He would strike up a conversation with a stranger, and by the end of it, they would feel like lifelong friends. Dad would always say, be yourself and talk about the things you’ve actually lived, and I think my son Freddie and I do a good job at this. Storytelling is certainly a Noe family trait.

I hope you take the opportunity to share stories with family, friends, and even strangers while you sip this batch, just as Booker would’ve done.

--- Fred Noe, Beam Family 7th Generation Master Distiller