Era: Distilled 1981 / Bottled 1999
ABV: 49.5%

Volume: 75cl

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Released in 1999, this Jim Beam Distillers' Masterpiece was one of the first super premium bottlings of Bourbon.  At the time, it's $250 price tag seemed high, but then this was almost 25 years ago and people were not yet clamouring for anything Van Winkle or trading bottles for thousands of dollars on the secondary market.  It was also one of the first, if not the first, example of a cask-finished Bourbon.  Booker Noe (1929-2004), grandson of Jim Beam teamed up with renegade Cognac maker and cigar aficionado Alain Royer, 6th generation of the Royer Cognac family and founder of A. de Fussigny Cognac to create this Bourbon.  With a mashbill of 77% Corn, 13% Rye, 10 % Barley it was first aged in new charred white Oak casks and then finished for one year in ex-Cognac casks.  One spirits writer summarised the outcome:  "The result was sublime, a huge Bourbon flavour loaded with all the orange, leather, vanilla, maple, nuts and honey of Booker's, but without the attendant heat. The Cognac cultured the backwoodsman with utter finesse and also left its distinct brandy taste on the palate."  A Bourbon truly worthy of the name Distillers' Masterpiece.