Aging Booker's Bourbon: Finding the 'Sweet Spot' for Flavor

nat rosasco • June 18, 2018

When it comes to aging bourbon, Booker’s small batch bourbon has the process literally down to a science. Currently produced by the Jim Beam distillery, it was Jim Beam’s grandson, Booker Noe, who founded this brand in 1992 with bourbon from barrels he personally selected.

According to the Booker’s Bourbon website, Booker was actually raised at a Kentucky distillery and brought his family’s six generations of master distillery knowledge to his bourbon batches.

How does Booker’s perfectly age their bourbon?

As we pretty much all know, bourbon ages in wooden barrels. When the weather becomes hot and humid, like it does during those sticky Kentucky summers, the wood expands and absorbs the bourbon, allowing for a chemical interaction between the bourbon and the wood. In colder weather, the wood contracts and the bourbon escapes the barrel’s walls. This interaction changes the spirit’s taste and color. The longer bourbon is in the barrel, the smoother the taste, (up to a certain point, that is).

Barrels are kept in rackhouses where temperatures can easily be regulated. Rackhouses were originally built out of stone with several wooden floors and an exposed dirt basement to control humidity and large temperature swings. The windows were designed to keep the buildings well-ventilated.

In the above diagram of a traditional nine-story rackhouse (which holds 20,000 barrels/1 million gallons of bourbon!), you can see how the barrels are arranged. Higher floors are hotter and dryer. Because water molecules are smaller than alcohol molecules, the water molecules escape the barrels at a much faster rate and the proof of the alcohol increases. On the lower floors, where it’s moist and cool, water molecules from the air enter the barrels and the proof decreases.

Booker’s Bourbon is aged in barrels in the middle of the rackhouse versus the outside where bourbon is exposed to more heat and ages more quickly. As mentioned on their website, the middle of the rackhouse is the “sweet spot.” It’s “where the temperature and humidity stars align to create the deepest and most intense flavors.”

Newer construction rackhouses are being created that are more cost-effective to build. However, they don’t have as much control over the interior temperature of the building, and the bourbon barrels must be rotated while aging in order to compensate.

There are even rackhouses being built to purposely allow sharp temperature shifts in order to accelerate the aging process. However, according to true bourbon connoisseurs, this bourbon doesn’t quite make the cut.

Looking for a bourbon taste-test to go along with your new barrel-aging expertise? If you’re in the Irving, TX area, check out Front Burner’s new location of their restaurant Whiskey Cake. The restaurant not only features the largest whiskey selection in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but also our white oak tables made out of reclaimed wood from an actual 1920s Booker’s bourbon distillery (see images below).

And if you’d like to infuse a sense of history into your next design project, contact us here.

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Inventory Sale

By nat rosasco • January 22, 2019

Reclaimed Table's huge selection of one-off, custom table tops are being sold at deep discounts at our Villa Park showroom. Find the durable tables you need for your next project, at prices you won't come across again!

Client Feature: Oak Tables & Benches for Navy Pier's Centennial Vision

By nat rosasco • July 17, 2018

Chicago’s iconic Navy Pier has always been a popular attraction since it opened just over 100 years ago in 1916. It currently welcomes 9 million guests per year. As explained on the Navy Pier website, the Pier was designed by architect Charles Sumner Frost and was originally based on architect’s Daniel Burnham’s “the People’s Pier” in his 1909 Plan of Chicago . It was originally known as “Municipal Pier,” but was renamed in 1927 in honor of the World War 1 Navy personnel who were housed there. As we blogged about a couple of years ago , Navy Pier has been undergoing renovations in honor of its “Centennial Vision” to reimagine and enhance the pier. While updating the pier with new programming and a greener landscape, this vision has also been attracting more local eateries ( like Tiny Tavern ) and shops, creating a space that’s more inviting to local Chicagoans. After providing pieces for the first phase of the remodel last year, we were pleased to continue to be part of this project for the recently completed phase two. Partnering with Gensler, we provided white oak tables and benches near the main entrance and for the brand new, 200,000 square foot Family Pavilion that features over 50 businesses. Fortunately, these pieces were created not only with their visual aesthetic in mind, but also to impressively withstand this sort of high traffic area. We also built the reclaimed red and white oak blade signs flanking all of the restaurants and shops, which creates a unified look within the complex. Much like the Pier, these signs have an interesting, rich history behind them. The red and white oak wood used to make the signs were actually horse fences on a farm in Mercy County, Kentucky that dates back to the late 1800s. Mercer county was one of the first settlements in the state, and the farm itself, Shawnee Springs, was originally over 2,000 acres. In the 1970s the farm was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. We knew the Navy Pier project was the right one for this specific wood-- historic wood for an historic landmark. (See our other applications of reclaimed red and white oak Kentucky horse fence here .) Check out photos of our tables, benches, and signs at the recently updated and unveiled Pier below. And if you’re in the Chicagoland area, you can check them out for yourselves in person, along with a whole host of entertainment on the Pier. Interested in some durable tables and benches for a high-traffic area? Contact us here to get started on your next project.