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Home > What's New > Jim Beam Black and Masterpiece
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Raising the Beams
by Jack Bettridge
Senior Features Editor, Cigar Aficionado
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Posted December 14, 2001, 2 p.m. e.s.t.
Upgrading, not new packaging, is the theme for Jim Beam's new products this season. Now available on liquor shop shelves are two Bourbon products with familiar names and packages, but significant changes in the spirit within.
Jim Beam Black has graduated from the premium level to superpremium, aging a year as well as gaining some alcohol strength. The result is an unqualified success. Furthermore, the company's Distiller's Masterpiece, a super-aged ultrapremium liquor, is now available in another format, which also involves extra aging. The relative success of that effort is a matter of taste. Both new products involve opening your wallet a little wider.
BACK IN BLACK
Jim Beam Black, the top end of the company's premium spectrum at seven years old and 80 proof since the 1970s, is now offered at eight years and 86 proof. Jim Maksymiu, the group product director, says the rise in price from about $13 to $17 a 750-milliliter bottle puts it in the superpremium category occupied by Maker's Mark, Wild Turkey and Jack Daniel's. He sees growth opportunity, as that market segment has added sales of one million barrels a year since 1997. The new Jim Beam Black is aimed at consumers who either want to graduate to a higher quality spirit or reward themselves with it on occasion. The company is committing to support the relaunch with a more concentrated marketing and advertising effort than Jim Beam Black has ever enjoyed. (Translation: you'll be seeing quite a few ads for it in the near future.)
Whatever the marketing wisdom, the relaunch is a boon to Bourbon lovers. With a modest rise in price, Jim Beam delivers with a whiskey that has definitive bang for the buck.
The nose is huge with the sweetness of caramel and toffee, as well as the spiciness of rye and licorice and a hint of maple. On the tongue the promise of spice comes through loud and clear, and is augmented by licorice and caramel. The finish starts dry, with just a touch of the raw bite associated with old-time Bourbon. Then it explodes with sweetness. In short, it's a great whiskey experience for $17.
REALLY, REALLY PREMIUM
Beam also boosted the outer limits of its most luxurious product, Distiller's Masterpiece. Masterpiece had been on the stratosphere of the ultrapremium market for three years as a $250, 18-year-old Bourbon with an added year or more of finish in used Cognac casks. Its newest expression of the same name is 20 years old, with the extra aging spent in Port wine casks. The added two years' effort bumps the price to $300 a bottle, making it the most expensive Bourbon generally available.
The original Masterpiece was the brainchild of Booker Noe of Beam and Alain Royer of Fussigny Cognac, which is imported by Jim Beam Brands. Noe is legendary for his Booker's single barrel, one of the first ultrapremium Bourbons. Royer is something of an innovator amongst Cognac makers, with his cigar brandy and experiments with aging in charred oak. So it was a natural for them to create the expression finished in Cognac. For this latest effort, Beam turned to its Geyser Peak Port, made in California, to find the casks for the new product.
The Port finished Masterpiece comes in the same impressive French glass decanter as the original. It comes in a transparent box, so the bottle is visible on its pedestal as it sits on your bar. Both are impressive displays that reflect the price paid for the product within. Proud owners can also order a free personalized name tag for their bottles.
A little background may be useful to understand this spirit. By law, Bourbon must be aged for at least two years in new charred oak barrels. (Most Bourbons are at least four years old.) As a result of the charred wood and the heat of Kentucky, where most Bourbon is aged, the whiskey matures quickly. A 10-year-old Bourbon is very old. Twenty years is ancient.
Given that, you might expect this Bourbon to be full bodied. That's an understatement. It's a flavor bomb. The nose comes out as an elegant mixture of apple and caramel. But it hits the tongue with explosions of licorice, maple, apple, caramel and lots and lots of wood. The time in Port wood then shows itself on the finish with the hint of plum.
Comparing the Port-finished Masterpiece with the Cognac finish, which was such a novelty when it arrived in 1999, it's hard not to mention that the new Bourbon doesn't have the same distinctness. The Cognac finish was so obvious on the former product that it's almost disappointing that the taste of Port doesn't make itself known up front on the latter. A subtle grape flavor is there, but you must almost go looking for it. The Cognac is obvious the moment you put glass to mouth.
That's where the two Masterpiece products become a matter of taste. Do you want a spirit that almost creates a new category, or do you just want an elegant Bourbon? At $250 and $300 a bottle, you might want to think about it hard before you open your wallet.
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