Booker Noe
"The Virtuoso"
Frederick Booker Noe II was born in December 1929. After attending the University of Kentucky, he joined the Jim Beam company in 1950 as an assistant distiller, though he had hung out and helped around the distillery since he was a child. An actual grandson of the legendary Jim Beam, Booker ultimately worked at his grandfather’s distilleries for almost half a century. Booker was the son of Jim Beam's daughter, Margaret Noe. More importantly, as Jim Beam's grandson, he kept the family line intact as the sixth generation of the Beam family to make bourbon.
Booker married Annis Wickham in 1956 and had but one son, Frederick Booker Noe III, better known as “Fred” (who later followed in his father’s footsteps as Master Distiller at Jim Beam). When Booker was named Master Distiller in 1965, Jim Beam was the world's top-selling bourbon, and under his direction, production increased twelvefold; he remained the Master Distiller for nearly 40 years.
At 6-foot-4, Booker was a commanding figure and a larger-than-life character. At home in Kentucky, he was the host of legendary backyard parties and dinners featuring his own bourbon and Kentucky hams, which he cured in his personal smokehouse.
He introduced "Booker’s Bourbon" in 1987 and first coined the phrase “small batch” to describe his uncut whiskey. Booker’s bourbon is undiluted at more than 120 proof, unfiltered and, in Mr. Noe's terms, “Straight from the barrel, the way bourbon used to be." With the creation of Booker's "Super-Premium" bourbon, he helped revitalize the overall bourbon industry, which was at the time being battered by the rising popularity of gin and vodka.
Booker’s now introduces four “Small Batch” releases every year during the four seasons. Theyalso now have specialty “Limited Releases” like Booker’s 25th Anniversary, Booker’s Rye and Booker’s 30th Anniversary.
A captivating storyteller, Booker retired in 1992 and spent the rest of his life traveling around the world and acting as an ambassador for Jim Beam, playing host at bourbon tastings and entertaining audiences, weaving stories and the history of his family.
After an extended illness, Frederick Booker Noe II, former master distiller of Jim Beam and the sixth generation of the Beam family to make bourbon, died on Feb. 24, 2004, at his home in Bardstown, Kentucky, at the age of 74.
Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee