Booker’s Bourbon Batch 2017-04, Sip Awhile, Ready For Holiday Consumption

The Booker’s Bourbon line of limited edition batches has come to the end of the line for 2017. What started the year as controversy around a potential major price bump in this bourbon from Beam Suntory has mostly turned now into another bumper crop year in this ongoing series. Thus the last 2017 expression seems aptly named as “Sip Awhile.”

Booker’s Bourbon Batch 2017-04, Sip Awhile, according to those behind it, was named as such “in tribute to founding distiller, Booker Noe, and his appreciation for all of life’s moments. Booker, who was known for his larger-than-life personality, lived each minute to the fullest. He loved spending time with family and friends, both old and new, and was always inviting people to the Noe family home to have a good time, relax and ‘sip awhile’ on some of his namesake bourbon.”

Sip Awhile, like other Booker’s bourbons before it, is a monster to drink at 128.1 proof. It was aged 6 years, 8 months and 14 days, having been culled from barrels from four different production dates stored in five different locations within three storage warehouses. It is set to price around $70 minimum when it goes on sale in December, just in time for Booker’s birthday.

Very limited official tasting notes from the Beam distillery suggest Batch 2017-04 to have “a rich chestnut hue with a nose that brings forward a sweet aroma of vanilla with some notes of caramel.” As always, you can drink this bourbon straight if you like, but given the high proof it might be interesting to cut it with a tiny amount of water as well to unlock a more full flavor profile.