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Bookers, the high-octane, barrel-proof member of the Jim Beam Small Batch collection, comes out in four (sometimes three) batches each year, each varying in proof, age and makeup. And each one comes with a name that represents a person in the history of the James B. Beam Distilling Company.
Booker’s was founded by its namesake, the late Master Distiller Booker No, in 1988 as a special bottle for his friends and family. In 1992, he added Jim Beam to the Small Beach collection, along with Knob Creek, Baker and Basil Hayden. To this day, Booker, now overseen by Booker’s son Fred and grandson Freddie, is the only consistently unstable and irreplaceable member of the lineup. Each batch is different, but typically falls between 120 and 130 proof and about 6 or 7 years of age. However, there are some exceptions, such as the 30th Anniversary Edition, a rare and collectible Booker’s Rye, and two Booker’s Reserves (the first of which was finished in tequila casks, the latter for the distillery).
Could it be that Beam is running out of things to name Team Booker? As mentioned earlier, sometimes it’s a person, other times it’s something that Booker (or someone else) just happened to know or was interested in. 2025’s Batch 4 is called Phantom Pipe, and while it sounds like the name of an obscure prog rock album, it actually refers to what Brand mysteriously says. . . A “mystery”.
Apparently, Booker had discovered a series of pipes installed in the rafters of Beam’s Boston, Kentucky distillery that didn’t actually go anywhere or connect to anything. This kind of Howard Hughes-esque behavior may sound like a fanatic, but his son Fred provides some context. “Dad was always tinkering with the distillery equipment, finding new ways to connect one thing to another through the pipes that ran throughout the plant,” he said in a statement. “Earlier Care took them down at night. But come morning, Dad was already returning them. Finally, the boys left them there, ready to experience whatever came next. Today, you can see parts of them scattered across the roof.”
If anything, it’s probably Booker’s best batch name since they started naming a decade ago (“Toogie’s Invitation” is a close runner-up), and bottled bourbon could make the top ten, too. The whiskey was aged for a minimum of seven years, six months, and 15 days and is bottled at 126.4 proof, which is a welcome mid-level strength for a Booker release. You can find details of which barrel the rickhouse came from on the website if you’re interested in that sort of thing, but most of the casks were pulled from the sixth floor of the seven-story warehouse G (Waterfill).
Booker’s Phantom Pipes are available at retailers around the country (SRP $100), and you can find previous releases on websites like Total Wine – including excellent reserves.
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