Review: Booker’s Bourbon “Teresa’s Batch” 2019-01
The first batch of Booker’s Bourbon special releases is on tap for 2019: “Teresa’s Batch,” coded 2019-01.
Who’s Teresa?
A longtime Beam distillery employee, Teresa Wittemer has been an invaluable member of Beam family…and it all started from a quick 15-minute interview with 6th Generation Master Distiller Booker Noe over 30 years ago. During her career at the distillery, Teresa has made her mark while working in the Quality Control department and in the lab, becoming an expert on mingling bourbon barrel samples to the exact taste profile Booker preferred for his namesake bourbon. With the help of Teresa, Booker’s Bourbon batches continue to live up to the high standards of its founder’s name.
This whiskey is aged 6 years, 3 months, and 1 day (a fairly typical age for this lineup), and, as with all of these releases, it is bottled at barrel proof.
This release offers an aggressive nose, bold with barrel char, dense and almost leathery. Overtones of tobacco leaf, cloves, and dark caramel give this whiskey some real gravitas — I might have released it in the winter months instead of the heat of early summer, for fireside sipping. The palate isn’t shy, but it does offer at least a modest level of sweetness. Here we find some butterscotch, citrus peel, vanilla, and a heavy spray of baking spices — all the stuff of classic bourbon — with a lightly smoky, almost dark chocolate note backing things up.
Booker’s is never a shy whiskey, and this release is a veritable monster. Consider your purchasing accordingly.
125.9 proof.
A- / $80 / bookersbourbon.com
Booker’s Bourbon “Teresa's Batch” 2019-01
$80
