Bourbon's Royal Family
Distiller Booker Noe carries on a time-honored Kentucky tradition

For a man born the year the stock market crashed, Frederick Booker Noe Jr. has lived an exceptional life thus far. The sixth generation distiller is now 74 and mostly retired, but is best known for unveiling his “small batch bourbon” in 1988 at the distillery in Clermont, Kentucky made famous by his maternal grandpa, James Beauregard “Jim” Beam.

Mention “Booker’s” to a whiskey connoisseur and watch his eyes glaze over. Most likely, a slow smile will spread across his face. It’s that good. At 126 proof, Booker’s Small Batch is the only uncut, unfiltered, straight-from-the-barrel, connoisseur’s sipping bourbon available today.

The idea came about when a Beam marketing rep asked the distiller what he drank. “I drink my liquor straight from the barrel down at the plant,” he recalls having said. “It’s just the best! It’s robust, heavy-bodied, with a full, nut-caramel flavor,” explains Noe. “It’s unique. Everything else today is charcoal-filtered. Booker’s is made the way it was a hundred years ago.”

For 20 years prior to the release, he’d been gifting this private stock to a few fortunate friends. The marketer suggested bottling and test-marketing 30 or 40 cases tapped from the barrels found in his favorite spot in the center of a nine-floor rackhouse built by Grandpa Beam. This area is less affected by the state’s prevalent temperature extremes and produces the smoothest flavor, according to Noe. The libation drew rave reviews, and Booker’s was born.

With a mischievous spark in his eye, this charming Southern gentleman still cuts an imposing figure, and opens his home to untold numbers of friends and visitors. He talks about his life with the confidence, candor and humor reserved for those who have worked passionately and have lived to the fullest.

From a high-backed easy chair in the parlor of the 180-year-old, white-columned, red-brick house (formerly the Bardstown Female Academy) bought by his grandfather nearly a century ago, Noe remembers his famous ancestor well.

Before Prohibition, Beam drove his horse and buggy to the distillery every morning. During Prohibition, all 29 of the area’s whiskey plants were shut down. Few ever re-opened. Yet, after its repeal, his grandfather rebuilt the distillery and was back in operation within 120 days. The distillery still uses the same 60-plus-year-old yeast strain and formula, both now protected in a local bank vault. He worked hard to preserve the legacy begun by Beam’s great-grandfather Jacob, a farmer who sold his first barrel of bourbon in 1795 in the same neck of the woods.

In 1950, Noe turned 21 and joined the family business. His Uncle Jeremiah noticed Booker’s talent early on. In ’51 he notes in his diary, “Today I began teaching my nephew, Booker, to become a master distiller. That boy’s got a real knack for it. He’ll do fine carrying on the family name.”

When Jim Beam passed away in 1947, Noe moved in with his grandmother and has lived in the house for the last 47 years with his wife, Annis. They share an easy congeniality with guests, a trait shared with his son Frederick “Fred” Booker Noe III, 46, who lives next door, (also in a house built by Jim Beam), with his wife, Sandy, and 15-year-old son Frederick Booker Noe IV.

Looking back, the elder Noe waxes philosophical, “I think one of the things that can make a good life is being satisfied, and I’ve been satisfied. I’ve been at one job for over 50 years. I’m proud to have held up my end of the deal, promoting my grandfather’s name and helping bring the business back after Prohibition. It’s not still owned by the family but is still producing and holding the quality. Beam is the No. 1 bourbon in the world by far.”

After retiring from daily work at the distillery in 1992, Booker began traveling the world promoting Jim Beam and its products. Now slowed somewhat by diabetes, he entertains clients in his home or at Kurtz, a popular local eatery since 1936.

Given his druthers, he’d tuck his napkin in over a meal of fried chicken livers and beaten biscuit with country ham. Add mashed potatoes and corn pudding, green beans, asparagus, turkey, fried chicken and Annis’ “awful good” slaw. Dessert would be eggnog and bread pudding with bourbon sauce or a little nut cake “flavored” with bourbon. And the accompanying beverage must be a tall, cool glass of “Kentucky tea,” a palate-pleasing mix of Booker’s bourbon and just enough ice and water for smooth sipping.

At holiday time special friends receive homemade beaten biscuits with home-cured country ham packed in a Booker’s bourbon wooden box. For years, Noe himself beat, rolled and baked the crusty treats from scratch. Biscuit-making is yet another torch now handed to Fred, who made “about a thousand” last Christmas, the mallet required for pounding now replaced by an electric roller.

Sometimes bourbon fans will drop in unexpectedly to meet the Noes, and the relationship building continues. They’ll shake hands, chat and sign bottles, then get back to life, “just like anyone else. Our family is still involved as a family in the production of bourbon,” says Fred. “My father taught me well and hopefully, I’ll carry on the tradition and pass it on to my son. If I can do as well as my father, I’ll be tickled to death. Hopefully, down the road my son will get out of college and come to work here, too.” Though he’s visited the distillery, the teenager is more interested in basketball and girls right now. That, his father chuckles, “is as it should be.”

Katherine Tandy Brown is a staff writer for The Lane Report.
editorial@lanereport.com

Back to Tourism Index

Back to September Issue

Copyright 1996-2003, by Kentucky Business Online.  All rights reserved.

Editorial content is copyright 2003, Lane Communications Group
All editorial material is fully protected and must not be reproduced in any manner without prior permission.

The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.