Booker’s Third Batch Of 2025 Heading To Shelves

The latest batch of Booker’s is named for the only master distiller of the Jim Beam Distillery to not be a member of the extended Beam family: Jerry Dalton.

Booker and Fred Noe first met Jerry when he moved into the house behind theirs and he took a job at a local distillery as a chemist. Over the years, Booker and Jerry became close friends, and he eventually went to work at the Beam distillery. When Booker retired, Jerry stepped up as Master Distiller for a few years until Fred was ready for the job. Fred has shared that he owes most of what he knows about the science of their craft to Jerry.

Fred Noe said, “For years, I just assumed Jerry was already part of the Bourbon Hall of Fame, but he only got inducted last summer. He’s a real humble guy who never liked making too much of a fuss, but he’s damn worth celebrating. Beam wouldn’t be what it is without him, and I couldn’t be prouder to honor him with this batch.”

It was implied that a batch named for Jerry Dalton would come out in 2024, but instead a batch was released for all the Beam master distillers and another named for Wild Turkey Master Distiller Jimmy Russell. At the time, there was some speculation among bloggers and on internet forums that someone in Beam had deliberately slighted Dalton, but that was always unlikely, and whatever hullabaloo there was is now resolved.

The stocks drawn on to create Booker’s Jerry’s Batch is a complex set of nine different warehouses, but the batch is aged 7 years, 4 months, and 21 days and bottled at 124.7 Proof. The recommended retail price is holding steady at $99.99