The first of a new annual limited-release series, The Reserves was officially announced this past week and per Freddie Noe, it commemorates his grandfather Booker Noe’s contributions to the bourbon world.  The inaugural release is a blend of eight- to fourteen-year-old bourbons that are uncut, unfiltered and offered at cask strength – pulled from the center cut in the warehouse.  The barrels found here are suggested to have the “deepest and most intense flavors” lending their development to the specific temperature and humidity exposure encountered within this portion of the warehouses.  This whiskey however differs from the small batch series released multiple times per year due to the use of fewer and older barrels with an overall lower production being offered

The 2024 release spans eight production dates spread across just the same number of warehouses, with the particulars being:

• 8 Years, 2 Months, 12 Days on the 4th floor of warehouse G
• 8 Years, 5 Months, 19 Days on the 5th floor of warehouse I
• 8 Years, 5 Months, 20 Days on the 5th floor of warehouse Z
• 9 Years, 2 Months, 3 Days on the 5th floor of warehouse Q
• 9 Years, 2 Months, 4 Days on the 6th floor of warehouse J
• 9 Years, 5 Months, 18 Days on the 7th floor of warehouse H
• 10 Years, 3 Months, 2 Days on the 4th floor of warehouse X
• 14 Years, 4 Months, 16 Days on the 6th floor of warehouse I

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Booker’s The Reserves Cost and Availability

Although it’s no big feat to find the last in Booker’s small batch series sitting on the shelves of your local liquor store at MSRP (I just walked past two this past weekend), I wouldn’t expect you’ll be so lucky to see this new limited release out and about.  Firstly, with everything new there comes a certain hype driven draw, and pair that with the more limited availability of this bottle and it’s likely to be gone quickly – IF – and that’s a relatively large if it makes it to the shelves in the first place.  So provided you get past the first big IF, you’re looking at a suggested retail price of $130.  These have already started hitting the secondary market however, and the cost is averaging $330 there according to the Bourbon Blue Book®.

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Bourboneur’s “Thoughts from the Peanut Gallery”

Firstly, it feels like Booker’s small batch series is getting a little lackluster now some thirty or forty releases in.  “Tommy’s Batch,” “Granny’s Batch,” “Ronnie’s Batch,” “Charlie’s Batch”…they all blend together into “another Booker’s small batch.”  This Reserves release feels a bit like an opportunity to offer the Booker’s loving community a little something different that stands apart from the crowd.  Some of the early reviews I’ve seen already put some fairly high praise to the quality of the juice, but, absent finding it whilst out and about or finding a unique way to trade into one of these, I’m certainly not keen to shell out the secondary price to see for myself if this really stands out THAT much from what has become the relatively fine ongoing release of small batches.

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