Jim Beam Distillers Masterpiece 18 Year Old Cognac Finish Straight Bourbon Whiskey

In 1999, Beam first tested the aging stratosphere with the 18-year-old, a collaboration between Booker Noe, the grandson of Jim Beam and creator of Booker's True Barrel, and Alain Royer, the renegade Cognac maker and cigar aficionado from the Fussigny house. The trick was an extra year or more of finishing in a Cognac barrel.

Jim Beam Distillers Masterpiece 18 Year Old Cognac Finish Straight Bourbon Whiskey Tasting Notes

Nose: Butterscotch, caramel, cherry and fig heavy dark fruit, spice and a light bit of vanilla. It’s a rich deep aroma with complex darkly sweet notes pinned up by a rustic earthy character.

Palate: Laden with dark fruits like cherries, figs and plums. That dark fruit is accompanied by a complex ball of dark sweets and light notes of vanilla, baking spice and citrus with a bit of mint that creeps in towards the end. Even though the citrus is light, something about it makes me think of an Orange Creamsicle.

Finish: Long and sweet with layers of dark sweets, dark fruit, wood and mint.

Distillery Information

At the Jim Beam American Still House in Clermont, Kentucky, crafting bourbon is a 220-year tradition. They start with a mix of corn, rye and malted barley which is fed into a 10,000-gallon cooker where they add a portion of the old mash from the last distillation. This helps to ensure consistency and transform the mash into “sour mash.” Unlike other whiskeys containing water with iron, Kentucky sits on a natural limestone shelf that acts as a filter, creating iron-free, calcium-rich water. This helps to craft the slightly sweet, golden-brown bourbon we all know and love. Once the mash is cooked, it is transferred to the fermenter and yeast is added to eat the sugars and create alcohol. After the fermentation process, the alcohol is transferred into a 65-foot-tall column still where it is heated to around 200°F. Jim Beam taps their high wine into brand-new, level-4 char, American White Oak barrels. This caramelizes the sugars within the wood to create a richer flavor with fewer tannins. After filling the barrels, they are rolled into an airy, hilltop rickhouse to rest. As the seasons change, Kentucky’s climate expands and contracts the barrel wood, allowing bourbon to seep into the barrel and extract the caramelized sugars, oak flavor and beautiful, golden-brown color from the charred wood.

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