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Booker's named batches


danz
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…had some bottles on sale on an end cap for $36 and I bought 3 bottles. Obv kicking myself after tasting it for not buying every bottle they had.

Wow! Would love to find a sale like sometime soon.

Speaking of leaving a Booker's behind. I left a 25th anniversary on the shelf, granted it was around $100 and I hadn't yet heard the rave reviews, but imagine seeing that now. Oh well, plenty of great stuff on shelves to enjoy.

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Booker's is quite common at $39.99 in the Minneapolis area, FYI.

must be nice.......

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must be nice.......

As fate would have it, I went for a pour of Big Man, Small Batch, and the @#$^ cork broke in half. Grabbed the corkscrew, to retrieve the remaining cork stuck in the neck of the bottle, and it popped into the whiskey. Needed to strain and filter all the bits of cork out into an empty Wild Turkey 101 bottle. First time that has ever happened with a whiskey cork! I used the occasion to open up the Center Cut batch, and noticed a bit softer presentation, sweeter, and richer---as compared to the spicier, oakier flavor of the Big Man, Small Batch. Again, initial thoughts, and may not be reliable due to my disposition with the decanting/filtering out of that @#$^@#$% cork that broke. OH well!

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Needed to strain and filter all the bits of cork out into an empty Wild Turkey 101 bottle.

Hmmm, be careful about using 'old' WT bottles as decanters. WT corks are known to among the worst for exactly the problem you encountered with the Booker's. A word to the wise..... :bigeyes:

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As fate would have it, I went for a pour of Big Man, Small Batch, and the @#$^ cork broke in half. Grabbed the corkscrew, to retrieve the remaining cork stuck in the neck of the bottle, and it popped into the whiskey. Needed to strain and filter all the bits of cork out into an empty Wild Turkey 101 bottle. First time that has ever happened with a whiskey cork! I used the occasion to open up the Center Cut batch, and noticed a bit softer presentation, sweeter, and richer---as compared to the spicier, oakier flavor of the Big Man, Small Batch. Again, initial thoughts, and may not be reliable due to my disposition with the decanting/filtering out of that @#$^@#$% cork that broke. OH well!

Bookers has this problem more than others, I think, because of the box it comes in. They may be kept on their sides until hitting the shelf, and combine that with the high proof, and it's a recipe for cork disaster...

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Needed to strain and filter all the bits of cork out into an empty Wild Turkey 101 bottle.

Hmmm, be careful about using 'old' WT bottles as decanters. WT corks are known to among the worst for exactly the problem you encountered with the Booker's. A word to the wise..... :bigeyes:

Thanks for the heads up on the WT bottle cork issue. I thought I strained all of the cork out last night, but there are super fine particles of cork in the decanted Booker's juice. Not sure what I can do now, cheesecloth? I'd rather not loose the juice to cork taint! At any rate, both batches of Booker's is good!

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Thanks for the heads up on the WT bottle cork issue. I thought I strained all of the cork out last night, but there are super fine particles of cork in the decanted Booker's juice. Not sure what I can do now, cheesecloth? I'd rather not loose the juice to cork taint! At any rate, both batches of Booker's is good!

Coffee filters work really well...

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My set up is a funnel under a coffee filter, under a small mesh strainer. The strainer catches the big chunks, and keeps the coffee filter from getting clogged up. A word of advice here. Be patient, and pour slowly.

post-3455-14489822618615_thumb.jpg

post-3455-1448982261891_thumb.jpg

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My set up is a funnel under a coffee filter, under a small mesh strainer. The strainer catches the big chunks, and keeps the coffee filter from getting clogged up. A word of advice here. Be patient, and pour slowly.

That's exactly how I do it as well. And good advice on the patience. It does take a while, sometimes a long while.

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And for goodness' sake NEVER use a "clean" gin bottle. The infusion seems to leave at least some stuff in the little pores of the glass no matter how many times you run it through the dishwasher (well, three wasn't enough).

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The biggest problem established brands have is getting attention because they rarely make any news. Booker's was always done in batches of about 350 barrels and each batch was numbered, but only a few people paid attention to them. The 'round table,' in which I have participated, brought more attention to the fact that there are four or five different batches of Booker's released each year. Everyone seems happy with the results. The 'named batches' are the next step, some of which will be round table. The point is simply to make a little news and generate a little chatter.

Round table is fun. We taste three samples. Each consists of barrels of different ages from different locations in different warehouses. Fred goes through them all. They do not dump all of the selected barrels. They just take a sample from one barrel in each set and use it, for our samples, in the same proportion as that set is to be represented in the proposed batch. Only the winner is dumped and, of course, bottled; although most of the nominated barrels will show up in Booker's eventually.

Even though they're always trying to match the Booker's profile, there are subtle differences, as there are between any two barrels. That's what makes it interesting and fun. I find myself sometimes saying, "I think this one better, but that one tastes more like Booker's."

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The biggest problem established brands have is getting attention because they rarely make any news. Booker's was always done in batches of about 350 barrels and each batch was numbered, but only a few people paid attention to them.

I think naming these batches is a great idea - numbers can be difficult to remember. In fact, I had a bottle of Batch #2013-6 sitting on the shelf for probably 8 months before I checked the number and realized it was part of the first roundtable batch (after re-reading an archived post on your blog).

In the past, Booker's was so consistently good and readily available that no one was really talking about it. The named batches seemed to have changed this.

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Thanks for the heads up on the WT bottle cork issue. I thought I strained all of the cork out last night, but there are super fine particles of cork in the decanted Booker's juice. Not sure what I can do now, cheesecloth? I'd rather not loose the juice to cork taint! At any rate, both batches of Booker's is good!

Could always just drink it fairly quickly. That way there is no need to worry about cork taint occurring or having to slowly filter it all.

And best of all it gives you a good reason to go buy another! :cool:

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Could always just drink it fairly quickly. That way there is no need to worry about cork taint occurring or having to slowly filter it all.

And best of all it gives you a good reason to go buy another! :cool:

This man's a genius, I tell ya.

Glad that medical school education did not go to waste. :cool:

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I know of 2 other corks of Big Man Small Batch that broke in half. Luckily, I was able to get one out without the cork going into the bottle.

I have enjoyed it quite a bit. Still looking for 3-2015. Barcode is the same on all the bottles, so you can't tell by the case exterior what batch is inside....

As fate would have it, I went for a pour of Big Man, Small Batch, and the @#$^ cork broke in half. Grabbed the corkscrew, to retrieve the remaining cork stuck in the neck of the bottle, and it popped into the whiskey. Needed to strain and filter all the bits of cork out into an empty Wild Turkey 101 bottle. First time that has ever happened with a whiskey cork! I used the occasion to open up the Center Cut batch, and noticed a bit softer presentation, sweeter, and richer---as compared to the spicier, oakier flavor of the Big Man, Small Batch. Again, initial thoughts, and may not be reliable due to my disposition with the decanting/filtering out of that @#$^@#$% cork that broke. OH well!
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I know of 2 other corks of Big Man Small Batch that broke in half. Luckily, I was able to get one out without the cork going into the bottle.

I have enjoyed it quite a bit. Still looking for 3-2015. Barcode is the same on all the bottles, so you can't tell by the case exterior what batch is inside....

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  • 4 weeks later...

The latest release, 2015-4, "Oven Buster Batch" is the youngest release this year at 6 yrs, 5 mo, 20 days (also happens to be the lowest proof). I hope this not another EWSB situation where a younger, inferior (from the consensus here) bourbon has been released. I'm not too worried though, since it is a "Roundtable Release" I'd think that it's probably going to be just fine.

This also raises another question. Is the demand for Bookers that high that they are releasing another batch? I know in my area, in many stores, the "Center Cut" is just hitting the shelves and there are many "Dot's Batch" left along with some older releases in some stores.

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This also raises another question. Is the demand for Bookers that high that they are releasing another batch? I know in my area, in many stores, the "Center Cut" is just hitting the shelves and there are many "Dot's Batch" left along with some older releases in some stores.

Demand is not that high in NJ. I know of a few stores that haven't put any of the 2015 batches on shelves since they still have the batches from 2014.

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Chuck, wondering if you could shed some light on their being a second "round table" batch put out so closely to the first one. From all accounts, "Center Cut" was a round table choice as is the newly released "Oven Buster".

Were these both tasted at the same time? Possibly too close to call...like 1-A and 1-B?

Bill

The biggest problem established brands have is getting attention because they rarely make any news. Booker's was always done in batches of about 350 barrels and each batch was numbered, but only a few people paid attention to them. The 'round table,' in which I have participated, brought more attention to the fact that there are four or five different batches of Booker's released each year. Everyone seems happy with the results. The 'named batches' are the next step, some of which will be round table. The point is simply to make a little news and generate a little chatter.

Round table is fun. We taste three samples. Each consists of barrels of different ages from different locations in different warehouses. Fred goes through them all. They do not dump all of the selected barrels. They just take a sample from one barrel in each set and use it, for our samples, in the same proportion as that set is to be represented in the proposed batch. Only the winner is dumped and, of course, bottled; although most of the nominated barrels will show up in Booker's eventually.

Even though they're always trying to match the Booker's profile, there are subtle differences, as there are between any two barrels. That's what makes it interesting and fun. I find myself sometimes saying, "I think this one better, but that one tastes more like Booker's."

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The latest release, 2015-4, "Oven Buster Batch" is the youngest release this year at 6 yrs, 5 mo, 20 days (also happens to be the lowest proof). I hope this not another EWSB situation where a younger, inferior (from the consensus here) bourbon has been released. I'm not too worried though, since it is a "Roundtable Release" I'd think that it's probably going to be just fine.

This also raises another question. Is the demand for Bookers that high that they are releasing another batch? I know in my area, in many stores, the "Center Cut" is just hitting the shelves and there are many "Dot's Batch" left along with some older releases in some stores.

Bookers has always been a 6-8 year product. As Chuck notes, it's also a batch of around 350 barrels. 6yr 5mo 20days is the youngest barrel in the batch. It doesn't mean the whole thing is that age. They're shooting for a profile. For all we know, the batch could be 300 barrels of 12 year old bourbon with 50 barrels of the 6yr 5mo stuff mixed in to balance the profile.

As others have noted, Bookers has been in this age range for years and nothing I've seen leads me to believe the age statement on the batches is getting lower at this point.

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Bookers has always been a 6-8 year product. As Chuck notes, it's also a batch of around 350 barrels. 6yr 5mo 20days is the youngest barrel in the batch. It doesn't mean the whole thing is that age. They're shooting for a profile. For all we know, the batch could be 300 barrels of 12 year old bourbon with 50 barrels of the 6yr 5mo stuff mixed in to balance the profile.

As others have noted, Bookers has been in this age range for years and nothing I've seen leads me to believe the age statement on the batches is getting lower at this point.

That sounds like good info. The relatively young age and the fact that it was released so soon after Center Cut are probably a coincidence. It may have more to do with the fact that they were both round table selections. I think we may find out more soon, maybe from Chuck.

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