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Kitchen Table Tasting Goes to the Home of Booker Noe

Once again this month, KTT took to the road for a very special tasting in an equally special location. The place was the Bardstown, Kentucky, home of Booker Noe, master distiller emeritus of Jim Beam Brands, and the tasting was of the four small batch bourbons in the Beam portfolio: Basil Hayden's, Knob Creek, Baker's and Booker's.

The first bourbon up was Basil Hayden's, a favourite of mine since I discovered it shortly after its Ontario release. One of the characteristics of this bourbon is an unusually high measure of rye in the grain bill -- the people at Beam will admit to that much, but not to the exact amount. A bourbon typically contains about 20% rye, though, so it's reasonable to assume that Basil's has significantly more than that; Gary and Mardee Regan, in their very fine Book of Bourbon, suggest that Basil's may contain more rye than any other bourbon on the market.

The generous rye content gives Basil Hayden's a highly spicy aroma, with notes of caraway, cinnamon and even mint. The body is light, long and fairly uncomplicated, with brown spice notes standing up all the way through and some woodiness showing in the finish. Several of the writers at my table expressed no small degree of satisfaction with this tasty whiskey.

Next up was Knob Creek, which I find to be a very sweet bourbon with notes of caramel and maple forcefully present on the nose. The body continues with its relative sweetness, showing more maple, some charred wood and perhaps hints of nutmeg and allspice. Later on in the evening, another guest at the tasting, David Furer, referred to this as a "dessert bourbon" and that struck me as being about right.

Baker's, the third bourbon tasted, was in some ways the least distinctive, with a true delicacy in its perfumey aroma and lightly sweet palate. This was reflected in the fact that no one at my table appeared to have strong opinions one way or the other about it. As someone who appreciates the subtlety of a good kölsch or Belgian blanche, however, I couldn't help but be impressed by how this bourbon demonstrates a great deal of refinement and character.

Finally, the coup de grace was administered in the form of Booker's, an uncut and unfiltered bourbon of about 125 proof, give or take. My initial impression of this whiskey, formed shortly after it had made its debut amid much marketing-driven acclaim, was that it was quite good but generally over-rated. I now think quite differently.

With a hugely intense and rich nose, Booker's serves notice from the aromatic outset that it is a bourbon quite unlike any other. Sipped straight, it virtually evaporates on the tongue leaving behind a tapestry of tastes; cut with a little water, it shows a complexity of spice, caramel, vanilla and light smoke. In total, it is quite a bourbon!

I walked away from that table impressed with this quartet of whiskies and sporting a new-found appreciation of Booker's. And I think that most of the people seated around me felt much the same.

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