The first release of the Booker’s® Bourbon 2024 Collection is Booker’s Batch 2024-01 “Springfield Batch.” This batch is named after the small town in central Kentucky where my dad, Booker Noe, was born and raised.

Dad was a natural storyteller. While out on the road to promote his namesake bourbon, he would tell anyone who would listen about how Booker’s Bourbon came about. Distributors and other industry folks thought Jim Beam hired an actor – that’s how good he was. He told a lot of different stories, but one of his favorites took place during a visit to Chicago. While eating at a nice restaurant, Booker was served a so-called “country ham.” However, it didn’t quite match up to his idea of a true, bona fide country ham. So he leaned over to his publicist and right-hand man and asked him to retrieve the ham he had stashed in his trunk for an upcoming Alaska fishing trip. Booker wanted to show the chef what genuine country ham tasted like. After a bit of back and forth, the ham made its way into the restaurant, where Booker generously shared it with both the chef and the other diners. That story always got the whole room laughing.

Many people think Dad was from Bardstown, the Bourbon Capital of the World, but it wasn’t until later in his adolescence that he moved into the Beam family home there. As a boy, he grew up in Springfield, Ky., a small rural town about 18 miles down the road. While the town has grown over the years alongside bourbon and a few other industries in the area, it was a farming community with many residents working in tobacco when Dad was young. Many, many years before he became the Master Distiller he was known for, he got his sense of hard work from his time as a farm hand in Springfield.

One thing most folks don’t know about the Springfield area is that it was where Abraham Lincoln’s legacy began. Beyond that, I’d say Dad is probably one of the more recognizable figures to come from Springfield. Even when he moved away, he spent a lot of time going back for family dinner, holidays and even the extended Noe family reunion every summer.

You never forget your hometown, and this batch is in honor of Dad’s. I hope you enjoy it as much as he would have.

— Fred Noe, Beam Family 7th Generation Master Distiller