The New Booker’s Reserves Got a Tequila Finish

Welcome to Taste Test, where every week our critic Jonah Flicker explores the most buzzworthy and interesting whiskeys in the world. Check back each Sunday for his latest whiskey review.

Whiskey fans don’t drink Booker’s because they are looking for a new cask-finished bourbon. They drink it because it’s basically a barrel-proof version of classic Jim Beam. Yes, there are other differences—the whiskey is older than White Label, the barrels are pulled from different parts of the warehouses, and there are a few technical production variations. But the main reason is that higher proof, and over the past 30 years or so the brand has kept things pretty consistent… until now. The label’s new the Reserves is the first Booker’s that has received a secondary maturation, and the first tequila cask finish for the James B. Beam Distilling Co. This was an experiment that could have gone very wrong; as it turns out, the Beam team got it very right.

The Reserves, which launched last year, was the first new line extension for the brand since 2019, the year that Booker’s 30th Anniversary bourbon was released (stay tuned, that whiskey plays a part in this new expression). The first release was a blend of bourbon aged between eight and 14 years, making it older than most Booker’s releases, and it was bottled at 125.9 proof, which puts it right in the middle as far as strength. The new edition of Reserves is very different. It was aged for eight years, 10 months, and 11 days and bottled at 123.3 proof (very reasonable for those of us who are tired of super high-proof whiskey). The main difference, however, is that this bourbon was finished in tequila barrels for a few months—specifically El Tesoro 85th Anniversary Extra Anejo casks, which held that tequila for three years after initially being used to age the aforementioned Booker’s 30th Anniversary bourbon.

In a conceptual sense, that means that Booker’s has sort of come full circle. But in a more tangible sense it means that this bourbon spent a short amount of time in tequila barrels, and that’s all the time that it needed to soak up some interesting flavors. There is not a huge amount of tequila-finished American whiskey out there, but the ones I’ve tried have really varied in terms of quality. Sometimes you can’t even tell there was a cask finish; other times the earthy, grassy agave notes have overpowered the whiskey. In this case, the secondary maturation was done thoughtfully and the bourbon has benefitted from the finish, picking up notes of roasted agave, citrus, freshly cut grass, cinnamon, and green pepper. But these do not obscure the core Booker’s character of caramel, roasted nuts, and vanilla pudding notes, and that lower proof means you can enjoy it all without too much burn.

Whiskey fans are inevitably going to have discussions about whether or not this new release is better than the first Reserves. In my opinion, it’s just totally different, and it serves a unique purpose. I liked the original, but the new Reserves stands out as being a successful experiment, a cask finish for a brand that has never tried one before. I don’t think this means that cask finishing will continue to be a part of Booker’s—or at least I hope not. But I think this new version of Reserves is an interesting way for a beloved brand to try something different without changing its core identity. And if you don’t like it, there are about 100 other Booker’s batches for you to try instead.

Score: 93