Booker’s Bourbon Batch 2015-4 An Oven Buster Of A Whiskey

“Big Man, Small Batch.” “Dot’s Batch.” “The Center Cut.” While these all might sound like song names on a new country music album they are, in fact, the names of the first three batches of this year’s Booker’s Bourbon releases. The theme around them for 2015 has been honoring the legacy of former Beam master distiller Booker Noe, and now joining them is the fourth batch, known as “Oven Buster Batch.”

Booker’s Bourbon Batch 2015-4 “Oven Buster Batch” draws its name from an experience Annis Wickham Noe, wife of Booker Noe and mother of Fred Noe, current Beam master distiller, once had while cooking. In her own words,

“I’ve always been fond of cooking with bourbon. Years ago, as I was preparing a pork roast, I mistakenly reached for a bottle of my husband’s namesake bourbon to pour over the roast. The oven sparked from the bourbon’s high proof and the door flew open — that’s how the Oven Buster nickname was born!”

As sometimes happens with Booker’s, Fred Noe pulled together the latest iteration of the so-called “Booker’s Bourbon Roundtable” to help in the selection of what went into the bottle for batch four. This group, with Noe’s help, ended up crafting a release that’s almost six and a half years old and which was bottled at a hearty 127 proof.

Tasting notes for the release, limited as they are, suggest “Oven Buster Batch” has some “vanilla notes and a nice oaky full-bodied aroma. The flavor is well balanced with a finish that is pleasant and leaves you wanting another taste.” It is priced at around $60 per bottle and should be finding its way into retail now.