It wasn’t even a year ago that I bought my first bottle of Booker’s, a legendary small batch bourbon created when Booker Noe was the master distiller at Jim Beam. His son, Fred Noe, has carried on the legacy with 3 or 4 small batch releases every year. I ended up buying 5 different bottles in an 8 month time frame, picking up a couple from 2024 and all but 1 of the 2025 releases. Some people say that the overall quality of Booker’s has gone down in recent years, but I have enjoyed all of these releases to some degree. Which leads me to one of my favorites: Booker’s 2025-03, also known as “Jerry’s Batch.”
This batch is named after Jerry Dalton. Dalton was a chemist by training and worked at a different local distillery while also becoming friends with Booker and the rest of the Noe family. When Booker stepped down as master distiller, Jerry became the only Master Distiller of Jim Beam that wasn’t part of the Beam family. He filled in as Master Distiller for several years until Fred Noe was ready to follow in his father’s footsteps…and along the way learned much about the science of bourbon from Jerry Dalton.
Booker’s 2025-03 “Jerry’s Batch” is made of barrels from 7 different production dates aged in 9 different warehouses, with a minimum age of 7 years, 4 months, and 21 days. It was bottled at 124.7 proof (62.35% ABV). On the nose, I picked up rich vanilla and caramel notes right away, with a punctuation of an earthy/woody aroma that got in there for a minute. Putting my nose further into the glass, that woodiness really took over the aroma aspect, leaving just a slight fruit sweetness in the background.
I sipped the Booker’s and the high proof immediately woke my palate up…it was the first whiskey I had since the night before and I generally don’t start with something north of 120 proof. Lots of fire on that first sip, but subsequent sips allowed more flavors to come through: baked apple, caramel, and a little nuttiness, all bolstered by a heavy oak presence. It is truly a bold bourbon and I feel like it drinks a little heavier than the 124.7 proof that is it…but that could just be because I hadn’t acclimated my palate first. Still, this one is really nice and one I wouldn’t mind repeating.
