*Photo credit: Mike Frey, TheBourbonCulture.com*

I want to start this out by quoting my good friend Mike Frey at The Bourbon Culture, because I 100% agree with him.

“I have no issues recommending this bottle for the price it’s at (around $200). That might seem steep, but it delivers an experience that’s on par with the Hardin’s Creek releases, limited editions of Booker’s and even the slightly obscure hits like Jim Beam’s Bardstown Collection. Please Beam, I’m begging you, don’t mess this up.”

You can find his full review and breakdown here, and I highly recommend subscribing to their site (right after you subscribe here, of course!).

Like Mike, I loved this bourbon. It may also make it into my top 10 bourbons of the year. This is a well-balanced, full-bodied Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey with significant age statements as components, all while retaining both the familial angle of Booker’s and heritage angle of Little Book.

Those components are:

20 year old bourbon distilled by Booker Noe
‍14 year old bourbon distilled by Fred Noe
7 year old bourbon distilled by Freddie Noe
8 year old bourbon distilled by…unclear…all of them?

I wasn’t really sure how to approach this - previous Little Book releases have been all over the map for me, from amazing to undrinkable. Through all the ups and downs, I have continued to respect Freddie’s vision (and Beam’s latitude) to experiment and do things outside the box for a behemoth heritage brand (brown rice whiskey, anyone?). Speaking of which, I have on good authority that there is some rice bourbon in this blend as part of Freddie’s component, which if true is curiously missing from any of the materials.

After eight chapters of Little Book, it appears it was time for a little rebranding, and that’s where things get complicated for me as a consumer. Simply put, this feels more like it should have been a different, maybe new, product line, rather than retaining the Little Book name. I associate Little Book with experimentation and pushing boundaries. As excellently done as this bourbon is, I don’t find it either experimental or boundary pushing. If anything, it feels like it should have been a special Booker’s release akin to what Wild Turkey Master’s Keep did with Jimmy and Eddie Russell in Generations or even Little Book’s Chapter 3: The Road Home, where the components and their brands were called out as ties to their respective creators.

For those reading who think I’m purposefully finding ways to put this release down, I want to remind you before I continue that I truly did enjoy this bourbon and find it worth the $200 price tag. There is light at the end of the tunnel…er, review…but bear with me.

Next up, we have to review how this is marketed. Little Book’s previous releases have all come with what I consider to be more in-depth information than, say, the 3-4 annual Booker’s releases do. I’ve always assumed this was the case mostly because Freddie and the team had to explain why someone should pay $160 for a blend of whiskies with grains with which they were unfamiliar (such as rice or malted barley as the flavor grains and not rye or wheat), particularly when those components had relatively low age statements for that cost. For The Infinite, however, we get this:

*Source:* *https://www.littlebookwhiskey.com/whiskies/little-bookr-edition-i-infinite*

What? Just….what?

The page (via the same link as the image above) just barely redeems itself if you keep scrolling with this, from Freddie:

Bourbon distilled by Booker lays the groundwork with notes of oak, char, and smoke. Fred’s bourbon brings in rich flavors of dark fruit, cherry, and brown sweets. And it’s all rounded out with bourbon I made where caramel, vanilla, and baking spice notes really shine through. Perfectly balanced yet unlike anything we’ve made before.

These notes are useful to some, I guess, but did anyone expect a Beam bourbon to not have oak, char, smoke, dark fruit, brown sweets, caramel, vanilla, and baking spices? Those descriptors could - and do - apply to dozens of their own releases over the years, let alone ones from their competitors that would similarly fit most if not all of these adjectives. These are words that describe bourbon. I can take Freddie’s word that it’s perfectly balanced (if it’s not, it’s close), but unlike anything we’ve made before? The opening description - that it’s a blend of distillates from Freddie, Fred, and Booker - and these notes quite literally describe it as encompassing everything they’ve ever made before, at the very least bourbon-wise. This was one of my chief complaints about the Booker’s release notes in my 2023 wrap-up, namely that the notes for nearly all of the releases over the past few years are interchangeable with each other. If you’re going to do a batched product, why use the same basic notes for all of them?

I’ll also call out issues with line editing and presentation of the webpage which, while having nothing to do with the quality of the product, are nonetheless distracting and frankly annoying for me as a consumer. Maybe it’s a double standard, but I don’t mind if a small family distillery where the head distiller is also the webmaster has some typos or weird line breaks or image overruns on its pages. But Little Book? Beam-Suntory? Yes, I do expect more care. Hell, even the URL has an extra “r” in it that’s driving my OCD crazy.

Ok - time to pivot.

If you’re still with me by this point, I hope you understand that I don’t write many of these types of reviews. If I’m writing this much about why I’m unhappy with a product or brand, it’s because I care enough to do so.

To start closing this out, let me say - again - I have great respect for what Freddie and the team have created here and for the entire Little Book line, regardless of whether I liked an individual chapter. The fact remains that this is a $200 bottle of bourbon at MSRP. At that price point and where the market is going right now, someone needs to do a better job telling the story. Wild Turkey had no problem marketing their multigenerational special releases - you saw “Generations” and knew what it was, and that was priced about the same.

Little Book “The Infinite” might be a story about Booker, Fred, and Freddie. It might be one about starting a new book after eight chapters. It might be introducing a solera-esque bourbon to the Beam lineup for the foreseeable future. It could be all of these things and none. For the moment, though, it seems Beam doesn’t quite know which it is. And if they don’t, how are we as consumers supposed to?

I’ll close with this comparison, chosen for the literary theme - the phases of Stephen King’s writing. If you’ve read the big hits - It, Carrie, The Shining, Misery, Salem’s Lot - you know him as a horror author, one inspired thematically by his experience with addiction and the isolation of rural America. To you, he is synonymous with being scared while reading. A style of fear runs throughout each of these, though the subject matter may vary greatly.

Then, someone gives you the first book of The Dark Tower. You enjoy it - it’s a compelling fantasy adventure, has similarly excellent writing, and you look forward to reading subsequent books in the series. But without seeing the name on the cover, would you know who wrote it? Does knowing or not knowing change your perception? If you’re expecting horror, no matter how well done The Dark Tower is it will always fall short of your expectations. If you know it’s still Stephen King but writing in a new genre, doesn’t that heighten your appreciation?

Little Book “The Infinte” is The Dark Tower to Little Book’s previous eight chapters. I welcome Freddie forging a new path, and he clearly has the skill to do it successfully. Just tell it like it is. If you’re going to charge $200 for a bottle of bourbon after charging up to $160 for the previous “chapters”, earn that price with information and care. Let it be a brand new series distilled and blended by the same author. Otherwise, no matter how good it is, we will always be comparing it to his other work and expecting something we will never get.

Thank you to Beam-Suntory and Savona Communications for providing this sample free of charge. All opinions are my own.

Whiskeyinmyweddingring.com is proudly sponsored by BAXUS, the global marketplace for the world’s most collectible spirits

Little Book Edition 1: “The Infinite” Bourbon Whiskey: Specs

Classification: Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Producer: James B. Beam Distillery

Mashbill: Undisclosed

Proof: 119.3 (59.65% ABV)

Age: 7, 8, 14, and 20 Years Components

Location: Kentucky

Little Book Edition 1: “The Infinite” Bourbon Whiskey Price: $200

Official Website

Little Book Edition 1: “The Infinite” Bourbon Whiskey: Tasting Notes

Eye: Dark black tea. Thin rims, drooping blobs become round drops.

Nose: Peanut shells, dry and dusty at a ballpark. Peach iced tea, heavier on the iced tea than the flavoring. The flesh around the peach pit, slightly bitter but still fruity, tart and sweet. Roasting corn on a grill and black cherries.

Palate: Ooh - sweet tree fruit like plums and honeycrisp apples, wildflower honey, flavors of late summer. Proof present but not dominant, peanuts fading into the background as body and a canvas rather than the primary flavor. Mouthfeel lis lighter than expected, wood not a huge factor with only mild astringency. Creamy, rounding into the mid-palate most of all, a bit thin but enough to carry the flavors.

Finish: Peanuts and shells reemerge, the fruits drying out somewhat. A super-elevated PBJ on artisan wheat bread. Medium length.

Overall: If this were a Booker’s and not a Little Book, this would be one of the best releases in years. As a Little Book, it feels misplaced…it’s still a great-to-excellent bourbon, but when I think Little Book I expect something experimental, even if it’s 1-2% of the blend, or something out of the ordinary (though you could argue including some 20YO stock is out of the ordinary). A bit thin on the palate, lots of flavors that I’ve been missing. Rating on how it tastes and not what label it’s under.

Final Rating: 7.5

10 | Insurpassable | Nothing Else Comes Close

9 | Incredible | Extraordinary

8 | Excellent | Exceptional

7 | Great | Well above average

6 | Very Good | Better than average

5 | Good | Good, solid, ordinary

4 | Has promise but needs work

1-3 | Let’s have a conversation