When Fred Noe make it for dinner atScopa Italian Rootsin Venice , California , he was leaning on a cane . sleazy knee . deuced affair ’s been bother him for years , but been burn up up badly enough that he ’s scheduled for knee successor surgery . Despite his ever - present smile , Fred was clearly in some discomfort . “ It hurts like a sum’bitch , ” he said , lingering on that last syllable like a snail move through peanut butter . “ But fuck it , there ’s bourbon to toast tonight . ”
A seventh generation bourbon maker , Fred was born in the same Bardstown , Kentucky , house where his groovy grandpa Jim once live . ( Jim as in Beam . Perhaps you ’ve heard of him . ) Fred ’s master distiller of the home ’s ur - whisky brand , and over a 30 - year vocation , he says he ’s worked every goddam job there is at the distillery , from bottle to selling . He carry over his current spear 12 years ago after the passing of his father , Booker Noe , godfather of the craftwhiskeyrevival .
In 1988 , Booker Noe released Booker ’s , an undiluted , unfiltered Bourbon dynasty that planted the seed of a bourbon revolution and just recently won amajor whisky award . When he go in February 2004,The New York Timeswrote that Booker ’s Bourbon “ helped revitalize the bourbon business , which had been battered by the rising popularity of ' snowy good , ' likeginand particularlyvodka . ” Just as individual malted milk created a raw marketplace for Scotch , Booker ’s and the rest of Beam ’s small - flock portfolio ( Baker ’s , Basil Haydens , Knob Creek ) set the stage for a chocolate-brown booze boom in America .
Booker and Fred Noe|Courtesy of Beam Suntory
Simply put , Booker was a caption .
“ I ’m just doing my good to convey on his bequest , ” Fred say . “ It ai n’t always leisurely , but I would n’t trade it for nothing . ”
Fred was in Los Angeles promoting the release of a new Jim Beam expression call Double Oak . As the name suggest , Double Oak undergo two separate agings in two new charred American oak barrels . To be calledbourbon , whiskey must be ( along with several other weather ) aged in newfangled , charred oak tree barrel . This specific conditioning give bourbon its classifiable woody bite . By demarcation , many Scotch malt whisky and other whiskies are aged in former bourbon barrels , establish them less bite and more mellow overtones .
By law , Bourbon dynasty must also be maturate two years . Conventional wisdom , however , bear that you want around seven years in wood to get an exceptional product . The idea behind Double Oak is to age the juice conventionally for four years , then to hit it with another novel - sear barrelful for eight month , amping up the intensity and accelerating its aging . In the historic period of instant satisfaction , we ’re not about to niggle .
What surprised me most about Double Oak is how subtle the wood ’s influence is on the whiskey . With two charred cask in play I was expecting a burn woods . alternatively I found a moderate well-off - boozing heart , one that bourbon beginners will find quite complaisant . Hardcore whiskeyphiles , on the other hand , might want to stick with the more complex offerings in Beam ’s sizeable portfolio .
I ’m also happy to report that , in addition to his big newfangled whiskey , Fred lend his fully grown old back talk . Damn thing runs like a scalded haint , and I make out every minute .
Our conversation started with his mother , Annis , who ’s 83 long time old and takes her Bourbon dynasty one way and one way only : mix in with ginger ale over lots of ice . “ She says that ’s the best way to drink it , and ai n’t nobody gon na tell her any dissimilar , ” Fred say . Annis has had a clear influence on Fred ’s philosophy on the precise and verboten agency Bourbon dynasty should be consumed . To mental capacity …
“ There ’s no right way or incorrect fashion to drink bourbon , ” he said . “ And anybody tells ya any goddamn unlike is full of shit . ”
Damn straight , Fred .
Unsurprisingly , he amplified this point with a story . A few old age back , Fred had just finished a staff grooming session at a bar in Tampa when a guy cable — we’ll call him Bill — came in and ordered Knob Creek with a splashing of cola , then intrust to the bartender that Knob Creek was his favorite John Barleycorn in the reality . The barkeeper asked Fred if he should let Bill bed that he was sitting a few stools aside from Jim Beam ’s very own kin and the man who now engineered his favorite hootch . “ Nah , ” Fred said . “ Leave ‘ i m be . ”
A few hour later Bill was get together by a few champion , one of whom started giving him a hard metre for “ polluting ” such a fine bourbon with cola . Bill , undiscouraged , proceeded to make such a convincing argument about the merit of Knob Creek and Coke that all four of his friend wound up order the drink . That ’s when Fred decide he should introduce himself .
Flustered by Fred ’s appearance , Bill enquire aloud if he had violate some hallowed whiskey code . On cue , Fred called the barkeep over and regularise a Knob and Coke .
“ The way you ’re supposed to drink Bourbon dynasty , ” he tell Bill and his pals , “ is any goddamn way you want to . ”
heed to Fred , I could n’t avail but be reminded of his old man . Back in 1998 , I was work at a paper in Phoenix and had the pleasure of spending a few hours with Booker . He was virtually 70 years old and carried his considerable free weight around with the assistance of a wooden cane . But in all the fashion that mattered , he was the same bourbon - swilling Kentucky boy who learned the family business back in 1950.“Our first label was call Old Tub , set up in 1882 , ” Booker told me . “ A stack of the bourbons are nominate ‘ old ’ something . Old Grand Dad . Old Crow . Old Tub . Old Bardstown . ”
I wondered aloud why that was . Without missing a all in Booker shot back , “ Because they ’re old . ” When you ’re right , you ’re right .
Booker also told me about a night when he and the former Carl Beam were taste - examine a peck of 2 - year - old bourbon that was n’t quite right . “ We were sit up in Carl ’s function in this honest-to-goodness beatnik - up wooden distillery , ” Booker reminisce , “ and we drank up all the whiskey that we had there . We were feel passably good then , but it was getting late . So I says , ‘ I got to go . I better go on in . ’ Then Carl goes over to this cabinet of his and force out a half dry pint . So we finished that off — one for the road , you know , which you ca n’t do no more , by the room . ” [ mention : Booker was from a different time . Today there ’s a thing called Uber . It ’s there for a cause . — Ed . ]
When Carl call Booker the next day to see how he was doing , Booker groaned , “ To tell you the deuced truth , I got the bout - head . ” The binge - pass , he explained , is a hangover of such magnitude your head feels as if it might wear right open air .
When I relay that narrative to Fred , he shook his head and smiled , “ Ol Booker , well , he was a true original . ”
Indeed , I believe , raising a whiskey . Like father , like son .
