This article was produced in partnership with Hardin’s Creek
Sipping an excellent bourbon is enjoyable enough, but it tastes even better when there’s a great story to go with it. These days, seemingly every whiskey is accompanied by a story, especially when it’s a limited edition. Maybe it’s about the rare oak that went into the barrels, or the extreme aging it underwent. Some stories are more fanciful than others, straining the credulity of savvy whiskey drinkers.
But there’s no need to stretch the facts when you’ve got over two centuries of real history behind you, as is the case with the James B. Beam Distilling Co. and its newest release, Hardin’s Creek. With 227 years of history and heritage in whiskey-making, the company has an abundance of true stories to share. Take it from eighth-generation master distiller Freddie Noe.
“Ensuring the highest-quality whiskey is released with a story is one of my favorite parts about being a master distiller,” Noe says. “Retelling stories I’ve heard from Dad or Grandaddy (Booker) is also one of my biggest inspirations as I’m looking to create new products and brands. Sometimes it’s just a funny story but other times it’s things I see or hear around the distillery that make me think, ‘How can we apply old distillery lessons into future innovations’?”
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The ultra-aged Jacob’s Well is one of two debut bourbons in the James B. Beam Distilling Co.’s new Hardin’s Creek line. The other is Colonel James B. Beam Kentucky Straight Bourbon, a 108-proof, 2-year-old bourbon with flavors of vanilla, nuts, caramel, and rich oak. The range of limited-edition whiskeys aims to showcase the next generation of pushing boundaries in whiskey through innovative techniques, ingredients, blending, and age statements. There will be periodic new limited editions within the Hardin’s Creek line, which is led by Freddie and his father, seventh-generation master distiller Fred Noe. The father-son team carries on a long legacy of Kentucky distilling that began with their ancestor, Johannes Jacob Beam, in the late 1700s.