Last Saturday I hosted a bourbon tasting for a few friends of mine. All of the attendees are bourbon enthusiasts, so we decided to taste our way through the Jim Beam Small Batch Collection. If you are a bourbon rookie, when you hear Jim Beam you probably think of the ubiquitous white label bottle. But we wanted to step up a bit from that so we chose the Small Batch Collection. The Collection consists of Basil Hayden's, Booker's, Baker's and Knob Creek. Each of the bourbons in the Collection is aged for a different amount of time and they are bottled at different proofs. Basil Hayden's even uses a different mash bill (recipe), so there is quite a lot of variance across the collection. Which is what makes tasting your way through them so much fun.
Nicole, also known as the greatest wife in the world, prepared the tasting in such a way that none of us knew which bourbon was which. She poured us samples ahead of time so none of us would know which was which.
After we tasted our way through, we voted on which one we liked best and which one we liked least. Water and ice were available to dilute as necessary. The winner was Knob Creek, which got three votes (Basil Hayden's got one).
This was mildly unsurprising as Knob Creek is a very recognizable bourbon, and there's a reason for that. It is really well balanced and has a nice sweet finish that is quite pleasant to drink. At 100 proof, it is right in my personal preferred proof. If you're new to bourbon and want to start expanding your tasting experiences, I highly recommend Knob Creek. (Even if you aren't new to bourbon, it might be time to stop chasing Pappy or the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection and give Knob another try.)
Basil Hayden's got one favorite vote. B-H is quite a bit lighter than the other bourbons, as it is 80 proof. The other notable thing about B-H is that it is made with more rye than the others. This gives it a spicier flavor. Our tasters described it as "soft and smooth" which makes for nice drinking on a hot summer day.
The least favorite bourbon was Baker's, which was also unsurprising to me. I've had Baker's on a couple of occasions and I can't say that I've ever really enjoyed it. Our tasting panel found it woody and hot, and adding some water or ice did not really improve it. The best I can say about it is that it is boring--it doesn't stand out against the other bourbons in the Collection.
The last bourbon, Booker's, was apparently safely in the middle. I've always enjoyed Booker's quite a bit, but the proof--130--can be a real turnoff. Booker's almost always requires some dilution, but it is a whale of a bourbon. It's got lots of bold flavors, but if you can dilute it down just right, it strikes me as an incredibly flavorful, sweet bourbon. My impression is that our tasting panel was a bit impatient with Booker's, as it takes some planning to dilute it down to each taster's preferred proof.
I should mention that we had a really nice spread of food to keep our stomachs full--again, thanks to my wife for that. We made a special trip to the grocery store to buy some supplies and we put out some snack mix, potato chips, pretzels and had some shredded chicken sandwiches made in the crock pot. Nicole was nice enough to bake us some cookies--they were a huge hit.
