Jim Beam Black Aged 8 Years – bottled in 2003!

JIM BEAM BLACK
Bottled in 2003; distilled in 1995 or thereabouts

MASH BILL – 75% corn, 13% rye, 12% malted barley

PROOF – 86

AGE – 8 Years

DISTILLERY – Jim Beam

PRICE – $14 (375ml bottle)

WORTH BUYING? – Oh yes

Back in the dreaded year 2020, for reasons to do with 🦠😷🏠 the annual April 15 tax deadline was delayed until July 15. But around the usual April date I posted about three budget bottles easy on the wallet—Wild Turkey 101, Evan Williams Bottled-In-Bond, and the discontinued Jim Beam Black 8 Year age-stated release, bottles of which could still occasionally be found in rando corner stores.

I was able to identify the bottle I’d found as being from 2012, three years prior to the age statement being reduced to only the vague “double-aged.” In 2024 the age statement returned, only now it’s 7 years. I haven’t tried this new spin on the ol’ Jim Beam Black yet. But I imagine it’s in line with its predecessors—a perfectly decent value bourbon, tasty in a basic way, okay neat and an easygoing mixer, not offensive but ultimately forgettable.

Then recently I came across this 375ml bottle, sporting a variation on the Jim Beam Black label that differed from that 2012 750ml I’d had. After much sleuthing on the www into Jim Beam label design changes and laser code formats, I was first able to discern from the label that this bottle hails from sometime between 2001 and 2006. The laser code formatting was trickier to confirm, but it very likely indicates a July 18, 2003, 3:33 PM bottling date and time.

So here we are, twenty minutes after un-cracking and on the bottle’s first pour. I feel rather silly, even a bit sacrilegious, using a fancy Glencairn to taste this dusty old bottom-shelfer. But I’m housesitting for friends who only drink wine if anything at all, their water glasses are tall, and a Glencairn is what I brought with me.

Oh first-world problems. On to the tasting.

COLOR – lovely vibrant medium oranges, with surprisingly thick drips in the glass

NOSE – bright sugary baking and oak spices right up front, underlined by an old-school herbal funk, something floral, a sweet fruit note like canned peach or apricot juice, faint red-skinned peanuts

TASTE – surprisingly syrupy, the flavors a more subdued variation on the punchier aromas, emphasizing baking and oak spice, the peaches now fresh and stewed, some drippy chocolate syrup, an undercurrent of sweet vanilla-caramel reminiscent of cheap fairground carnivals

FINISH – sweet oak and bitter oak tannin, the herbal funk, a return of the red-skinned peanut, lingering sugary baking spice

OVERALL – solid cheap stuff. Like a good dive bar. I dig it.

This is much better than I remember that 2012 bottle being, for sure. The aroma and flavor notes are similar. But the viscosity is more syrupy. There’s even a complexity to how the various notes interact, the way they layer upon one another.

The overall experience is definitely mainstream, cheap, fast and get-it-done dirty. It’s fun. Like those rattly old traveling carnival rides you hop aboard despite your better judgment. My childhood was marked by my annual survival of the local county fair. Though I wasn’t drinking Jim Beam then 😉, this bourbon takes me right back there. The sunny fresh air, cheap candy, stale peanuts and popcorn, trampled grass and dirt underfoot, and those rickety rattling rides held together by rust and fingers crossed.

When I’m back home from housesitting and have my cocktail supplies at hand, I’ll try this bourbon in an Old-Fashioned made the old-school way, no fancy bitters or syrups. I’m guessing it’ll be right up there (down there?) with what I’d get at Li Po or Spring Lounge. That’s a compliment to those venerable joints. When you go to a good old divey bar, you don’t want sage honey syrup, house-made artisanal bitters, or organic cherries. You want the cheap stuff. The comfort food. This 2003 Jim Beam Black is exactly that.

I’m for sure heading back to that corner store where I found this bottle, and scooping up the rest. Why not? It’s good, cheap, and the 375ml size packs easy for the road—or to sneak into the county fair!

Cheers!