If there’s one bourbon distillery that earns the designation, “jack of all trades,” it’s almost certainly Jim Beam. About the only thing missing from the distillery’s otherwise expansive portfolio is a core wheated product. Yet for all of the strong and consistent releases that Jim Beam puts out, it’s rare to find one that could top a “Whiskey of the Year” list. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised; Jim Beam is one of the largest, most storied bourbon distilleries out there. Many drinkers cut their teeth on the likes of Jim Beam White, with the more casual crowd rarely stepping beyond that for a go-to. Enthusiasts, on the other hand, can either find themselves utterly delighted or overwhelmed by the sheer volume of brands and extensions that Jim Beam introduces each year.

Take the subject of today’s review for example: Booker’s Reserves 2024. This inaugural brand extension of the venerable Booker’s line is the first of its kind since 2019’s Booker’s 30^th Anniversary release, effectively making Reserves 2024 the Booker’s 35th anniversary bottle. Unlike the previous and proper anniversary releases, however, Reserves is a new annual release, pitched as a celebration of Booker Noe’s legacy and “the kind of bourbon I believe he’d be making, if he were still here with us now, “ according to 8^th generation Master Distiller Freddie Noe. This comment is particularly interesting when you consider that the follow-up to Reserves 2024 implemented a tequila finish, but I digress.

Discerning folks may have noticed that the rustic-looking text on the Booker’s Reserves bottle contains a slight adjustment to the established wording on regular Booker’s bottles. Regular Booker’s releases proudly display that Booker Noe “liked his whiskey from six to eight years old,” while Reserves changes this to “big, bold and aged in the center cut of the rackhouse.” As you might’ve deduced, this is because the alleged upper age limit for regular Booker’s releases became the minimum part for Reserves 2024. More specifically, the whiskey used for this release was aged between 8-14 years, putting it nearly in-line with Booker’s 30^th (which used 9 and 16-year barrels) with regards to specs.

One final bit I’ll mention before heading into my tasting notes is potential conjecture. A couple of my friends from Florida did a lengthy tour at Jim Beam with Freddie Noe last year. According to them, Freddie said that the barrels used for Reserves 2024 were pulled from leftover stocks used for previous Booker’s batches. This makes sense on paper; any younger Booker’s barrels from 2018 or 2019 left to continue aging would be 11-12 years old by this point. Booker’s is also generally produced and batched to a certain profile, though I do wonder if some of the leftover barrels originally intended for Booker’s end up as Baker’s 13-Year barrels. Regardless, take this entire paragraph with a healthy grain of salt.

Now let’s get on to the whiskey itself. Booker’s Reserves 2024 was bottled uncut and unfiltered at 62.95% ABV, released in limited quantities, and carried a suggested retail price of around $130, but would often be found closer to $200-$300 on secondary markets.

Nose: Tried-and-true Booker’s profile, but with more noticeable depth. The savory pepper and barrel char notes are complemented by sweet peanut brittle and caramel. Cinnamon-dusted peanuts and dried cranberries against a layer of cornmeal and cardamom also keep the expected essence of modern Booker’s intact.

Palate: Festive; ample baking spices to go around. Although there’s a backbone of caramel, cherry, and honey-drizzled peanut brittle, it’s amply bolstered by notes of allspice, cinnamon, and coriander. In true Booker’s fashion, the mouthfeel is full and becomes progressively chewy.

Finish: What I look for in a Booker’s finish—dense, lengthy, and chewy. Maintains the savory backbone with a warm, drying sensation to complement the lingering spice notes—cinnamon, clove, and star anise immediately spring to mind. The mouthfeel also hits an apex here, turning the brittle into a rich, slightly sweet peanut butter note.

Consider me pleasantly surprised: Booker’s The Reserves 2024 is a killer release that provides an elevated version of the well-established formula found in modern Booker’s. The main thing holding this release back, other than its particularly limited availability, is the unsurprising flavor profile. If you’ve had a Booker’s release from the past three years and been pleased with it, the chances that this will drastically exceed that experience are slim. That said, there’s a noticeable uplift here that I think Booker’s enthusiasts will appreciate much more than Jim Beam skeptics.

One of my favorite bourbon profiles to find is that of an old spice cabinet, which few distilleries consistently provide in any of their brands. This is where Jim Beam has a borderline-Ace up its sleeve. Booker’s generally leans on the drier side for bourbon, with The Reserves 2024 taking that essence and adding a rich caramel backbone for good measure. If this bourbon was a sachet of tea, it’d release tons of caramel and classic, Fall-inspired baking spices; I don’t think I need to tell you how good of a flavor combination that is.

I will concede that Booker’s The Reserves 2024 isn’t the most conventionally impressive pour, especially when thrown into tastings against some other heavy-hitting bourbons. But when evaluated on its own merits, this bourbon fulfills in a way that others struggle to achieve in identical scenarios. For example, I moved from Florida to DC last year and just recently experienced my first snow storm. Booker’s quickly sprung to mind as a pour to make me feel warm (ostensibly), which it achieved with flying colors. Perhaps this is too situation-dependent, but I think there’s something to be said for a whiskey that perfectly fulfills a certain niche.

All of this rambling is to say that I think Booker’s The Reserves 2024 is one of Jim Beam’s better LTO releases as of late, even eclipsing the borderline-stellar Little Book 3: The Road Home. In a world where Jim Beam consistently puts out great-but-not-excellent releases, Booker’s The Reserves 2024 just barely eclipses its proverbial brethren enough to earn a higher mark. Fans of the existing product line will clearly enjoy and get the most out of this inaugural release while nearly everyone else will likely regard it less enthusiastically. And that’s fine.