Booker's Little Book Whiskey

Booker's Little Book is the annual limited-edition American whiskey series created and blended by Freddie Noe, the eighth-generation member of the Beam distilling family. Each release is a "Chapter" — a one-time, uncut, unfiltered blend Freddie builds from his own stocks at the Fred B. Noe Distillery on the James B. Beam Distilling Company campus in Clermont, Kentucky. The series launched with Chapter 1 in October 2017 and has released a new Chapter every year since.

The series is named after Freddie Noe himself. His grandfather, Booker Noe (creator of Booker's Bourbon and one of the most influential figures in modern American whiskey), nicknamed young Freddie "Little Book" because of the close family resemblance. When Freddie launched his own annual whiskey series in 2017, he carried the childhood nickname forward as the brand name, deliberately positioning his program as a direct extension of his grandfather's small-batch legacy.

Little Book Chapter 1 "The Easy" was released in October 2017 as Freddie Noe's inaugural blend. The series has released a new Chapter every year since, with Chapter 10 "All the Wiser" arriving in 2026. Each Chapter is a one-time release and does not repeat in subsequent years, meaning a complete Little Book set comprises ten distinct whiskeys (plus the separate Infinite Edition line).

Chapter 1 "The Easy" was a 128.2-proof blended American straight whiskey featuring 13-year-old corn whiskey aged in used barrels, 4-year-old Kentucky straight bourbon, 6-year-old Kentucky straight rye, and 6-year-old straight malt whiskey. It established the series' uncut, unfiltered, cask-strength format and introduced Freddie Noe's approach of building each Chapter around an experimental, often unconventional combination of whiskey styles.

Chapter 2 "Noe Simple Task" (2018) was a 118.8-proof blend of 8-year Kentucky straight rye with 13-year and 40-year Canadian whiskies. Chapter 3 "The Road Home" (2019) was a 122.6-proof bourbon — the first all-bourbon Chapter — built from the Jim Beam Small Batch lineup with 9-year Knob Creek, 9-year Basil Hayden's, 11-year Booker's, and 12-year Baker's. Chapter 4 "Lessons Honored" (2020) was a 122.8-proof tribute to Freddie's father Fred Noe, blending a 4-year Kentucky brown rice bourbon, an 8-year Kentucky high-rye rye, and a 7-year Kentucky straight bourbon.

Chapter 5 "The Invitation" (2021) was a 116.8-proof blend of 2-year Kentucky bourbon, 3-year 100% malted rye, 5-year Kentucky bourbon, and 15-year Kentucky bourbon. Chapter 6 "To the Finish" (2022) was a 117.45-proof release built around four separate 4-year straight malt whiskeys, each finished individually on cherrywood staves, applewood smoked barrels, hickory smoked barrels, and maplewood staves — then blended together with 5-year Kentucky straight bourbon. Chapter 7 "In Retrospect" (2023) was a 118.1-proof blend with the widest age range in the series to date, spanning 18-, 17-, 9-, and 4-year Kentucky bourbon, 10- and 4-year Kentucky rye, and a 5-year straight malt finished in applewood smoked barrels.

Chapter 8 "Path Not Taken" (2024) featured a 7-year Kentucky straight bourbon distilled with a five-day fermentation (rather than Beam's standard three-day fermentation) and distilled to a lower-than-usual entry proof. Chapter 9 "None for Granted" (2025) was a 121.8-proof blend of an 8-year Kentucky straight rye with four Kentucky straight bourbons aged 7, 7, 8, and 11 years — including an 8-year bourbon distilled with a brown rice mash bill and a 7-year bourbon distilled with the five-day fermentation. Chapter 10 "All the Wiser" (2026) was bottled at 122.6 proof at a suggested retail of $159.99 and described by Freddie as the series' most mature blend yet.

Little Book "The Infinite" is a separate, more exclusive line that runs above the annual Chapter releases. Edition I (2024) blended bourbons from Freddie's grandfather Booker Noe, his father Fred Noe, and his own personal stocks, with whiskeys aged 7 to 20 years. Edition II (2025, 120.8 proof, $200 SRP) extended the program with a solera-style approach — carrying about 30% of Edition I forward and marrying it with three new bourbons: a 22-year-old from Booker, a 10-year-old from Fred, and a 7-year-old (extended fermentation) from Freddie. Each Edition functions as a working "infinity bottle" representing three generations of Noe family distilling under a single label.

Every Little Book Chapter to date has been bottled uncut and unfiltered at cask strength — proofs have ranged from a low of 116.8 (Chapter 5 "The Invitation," 2021) to a high of 128.2 (Chapter 1 "The Easy," 2017). The cask-strength bottling approach is a direct tribute to Booker Noe, who pioneered the modern uncut, unfiltered, barrel-proof bourbon category in 1988 with the launch of Booker's Bourbon.

Little Book bottles can be authenticated by inspecting several details. Every Chapter in the series ships inside a substantial wooden display box, with Chapter 2 onward showing the chapter number, chapter name, and release year clearly on the front of the box (the inaugural Chapter 1 from 2017 uses a different front-panel design that predates this standardized format). The bottle itself uses the recognizable Little Book silhouette with a wax-dipped or molded synthetic closure depending on the Chapter, and a hangtag attached at the neck carries the release's detailed provenance information — chapter number and name, release year, barrel proof, the specific component whiskeys in the blend, and their respective ages. To confirm authenticity, cross-check three points: the proof printed on the front bottle label must exactly match the proof shown on the neck tag, the neck tag's blend composition and ages must match Beam's official press release for that Chapter, and the wooden box's front-panel callouts (Chapter 2 onward) must match both. Discrepancies between any of these three are a red flag. Cana Wine Co. sources every Little Book bottle through licensed Kentucky distribution channels and inspects each one before listing.

Standard Chapter releases launched at suggested retails between $79.99 and $124.99 during the program's early years (Chapters 1 through 3), climbed to $124.99-$129.99 across Chapters 4 through 7, and reached $159.99 for Chapter 10 "All the Wiser" in 2026. The Infinite Edition is positioned above the Chapter line at a $200 suggested retail (Edition II, 2025). Allocated nationally on a limited basis, all Little Book releases consistently sell above retail on the secondary market, with the early Chapters (1-3) and the highest-rated entries (Chapters 5, 7, and the Infinite Editions) commanding the steepest premiums.

Little Book has emerged as one of the most consistently appreciating modern American whiskey series. The combination of single-author authorship (every Chapter is Freddie Noe's personal creative project), one-time non-recurring blends, escalating storytelling tied to the Noe family narrative, and the program's connection to Booker Noe's foundational small-batch legacy has made the series a reliable long-term hold. Chapter 1 "The Easy" has appreciated multiple times over its $79.99 launch price, and the Infinite Edition I (2024) has tracked similarly. The brand's continued evolution under Suntory Global Spirits, paired with Freddie's elevation to Master Distiller, has cemented Little Book as one of the defining annual whiskey programs of the modern American whiskey era. As with any allocated whiskey, future appreciation depends on continued scarcity and brand momentum, but the Little Book series has historically been one of the more defensible mid-tier collector positions in the catalog.