Booker’s Rye Whiskey Review

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I know that I’m almost a decade late to reviewing Booker’s Rye Whiskey, but having this gap of time has enabled me to dig into every facet of its past, present and future. This rye whiskey is simply too important to ignore. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that Booker’s Rye may be the highest regarded Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey to have been distilled this millennium.

Booker’s Rye Past

The rye whiskey that went into this bottle was first distilled by Booker Noe in 2003. It’s considered to be some of the last distillate he produced until his departure in 2004. The story of its creation veers sharply from the typical Jim Beam rye whiskey recipe. The standard recipe uses 51% rye grain and probably around 39% corn and maybe 10% malted barley. It also comes off the still at around 130 to 135 proof before being barreled at 125 proof.

Booker’s Rye is said to contain at least 15% more rye than the standard Beam rye whiskey – so that should make it about 66%. I assume that the ratio of corn went down while the malted barley remained the same. So my guess is the recipe is somewhere around 66/24/10. However, the most important part about this rye whiskey is that it came off the still at 125 proof and went directly into the barrel – no water added. This is exactly how Booker’s and Baker’s bourbon is made as well.

We don’t know why Booker Noe decided to create a whole new recipe, but distillers are known to experiment from time to time. However, experiments are usually done on a much smaller scale. In interviews that came out after the 2016 release, it was revealed that the makeup of this batch was around 100 barrels. Enthusiasts disagree over the outturn of bottles, but estimates have ranged between 7,000 and 10,000 (the bottle being reviewed today is #7992 for reference). That’s quite a large experiment!

Booker’s Rye Present

Something that I think most enthusiasts aren’t aware of is that Beam has continued to produce the same mash bill that was used for Booker’s Rye. Some of the earliest clues came from the 2017 release of Little Book Chapter 1 (The Easy). In it, there was “approximately” 6-year-old “high rye” rye whiskey used in the blend. This turned out to be Booker’s Rye. It was later revealed that whenever a Beam product uses the description of “high rye rye whiskey,” it usually means it’s the Booker’s Rye mash. The math indicates that it was distilled around 2011. This was eight years after Booker Noe laid down the barrels that would become Booker’s Rye and five years before that label would came out.

It wouldn’t be long before we saw it again – this time in the 2020 release of Little Book Chapter 4 (Lesson’s Honored) where the breakdown included an 8-year-old version of it. That would indicate it was distilled in 2012. Have batches of Booker’s Rye been produced every year?

Booker’s Rye Future

A couple years after the release of Booker’s rye, media outlets began to inquire about a follow-up release. Fred Noe said in 2018 that no plans were in place to create more Booker’s Rye. Freddie Noe has shared a more optimistic view of it returning in a 2021 interview. If you go on to read those interviews, you might get the sense that Fred Noe could have been holding back additional information. This is contrary to Freddie who seemed to be bursting at the seams wanting to talk about it.

Here is what the information boils down to. It is confirmed that Beam has continued to make the high rye rye whiskey mash bill (the one I speculated was around 66/24/10 earlier). But it seems that Beam has NOT distilled it the same way as the original Booker’s Rye. Fred Noe indicated that it was coming off the still at a higher proof – much like Jim Beam and Knob Creek products are made (130-135 still proof). If this is true, then none of the barrels would qualify to become Booker’s Rye. Anything wearing the Booker’s name must have no water added after distillation is complete.

So has Beam been making “almost-Booker’s” for more than a decade? That would seem incredibly wasteful if they did. Besides, what else were they producing those barrels for aside from the two Little Book releases?

We can only hope that Beam’s longterm plan involved making this recipe at least once a year so that enough supply would be built up for some sort of annual release. But that all seems like a pipe dream if they did, in fact, waste years of making the recipe to the “wrong” specifications. If that’s the case, who knows when we’d ever see one again?

Booker’s Rye value

Booker’s Rye was priced at an incredible $300 back in 2016. That was almost unheard of for any American-made whiskey at the time. Beam justified it by pointing to their recently released 25th Anniversary Edition of Booker’s was marked at $200. So since Booker’s Rye was about 3 years older and used a more expensive and rare mash bill, the sales directors at Beam landed on an increase of $100 seeming fair. No matter how this was explained, it still shocked (and angered) plenty of enthusiasts.

These days, it seems like we have become numb to whiskies above $250. Don’t get me wrong, $300 is still a very large amount to pay for a bottle, but when it’s something that has no equal on the market most enthusiasts will find the money for it. Also, I want to point out that Booker’s Rye is going for around $2,000 on the secondary market at the time of writing.

For the most part, there still is nothing quite like Booker’s Rye on the market. Nothing has been released from Kentucky that is as old and high in proof since then (Parker’s Heritage Collection 10 Year Rye comes closest). And nobody is making theirs at the specs of Booker’s. This is why I’m so excited to get a taste of this legend. Will it prove to be worth the hype? Let’s find out. A special thanks to Niall for bringing this bottle to the birthday celebration of Chris and sharing it with all of us. I sampled this neat in a glencairn.

Tasting Notes

Nose: Sweet notes of caramel, toffee and cinnamon raisin bread show me that this has a lot in common with Booker’s Bourbon. But it’s not an entirely “bourbon” affair. You can smell the rye character throughout. There’s mint, clove, candied oranges, wildflower honey and a bold herbal presence everywhere. The nose also shows off its age with oak, leather glove and cigar ash everywhere. Other scents include pull-apart bread, cherry pie filling and cola concentrate.

Palate: The flavors on my tongue are big and bold. However, for being 136 proof, they’re remarkably restrained – kind of like one of those high-proofed old-label Elijah Craig Barrel Proofs. I’m finding a host of spices like cinnamon, fennel, clove and ground peppercorn. The tannins show off its age with oak spice, oak furniture and damp tobacco. There is the perfect amount of sweetness with each sip including molasses, roasted marshmallow, vanilla pudding and brulee’d sugar. Rye flavors ensure you know you’re drinking a rye whiskey with notes of thin mint cookies. There are more fruit notes than I was expecting with lemon zest, apricots, spiced cherries and apple peels. Each flavor seems complimentary to the next. This is the kind of sip that will become ingrained in your mind.

Finish: Oak notes take center stage on the finish, but do not spoil the rest. Fresh, fried donuts with cinnamon dust, cherry cola concentrate, candied citrus peel, York Peppermint Patty and a little bit of ash (or the feeling of just having smoked a cigar) showcase the complex flavors that don’t go away. Is this “ash” note I’m tasting (kind of like a powdery sensation) closer to chocolate milk powder instead? Maybe. The finish goes on for days.

Score: 9.3/10

It looks like all the hype was right, this is one of the top rye whiskies I’ve drank in my life. While maybe not “The Top,” it certainly belongs among the legends. It’s hard to fathom how a rye whiskey like this turned into such a bold, complex and delicious rye whiskey on its first try. Booker Noe captured lightning in a bottle that day back in 2003 and this is about as stunning of legacy as he could have left for us.

One thing that I disagree with some reviewers on is how they thought this tasted closer to a bourbon. I found rye characteristics in every sip I took. While it has a sweetness that might seem foreign to people who have drank lots of younger rye whiskies, vintage Pennsylvania ryes always tasted sweet like candy to me. This happens when care is taken during distillation and aging.

Final Thoughts

This might be my shortest “Final Thoughts” ever, but it doesn’t get much better than Booker’s Rye. If you have the money or the means to get your own bottle, you need to do it. Even just getting to taste it like I did can be a life-changing experience. Judging by the looks of things, you’ve got a lot of time between now and whenever the next release comes out.