The James B. Beam Distilling Co., as the distillery that makes Jim Beam is now called, makes a whole lot of other bourbon besides its core workhorse, White Label. Some of these whiskeys get a lot of love, like Booker’s and Knob Creek in the Small Batch Collection. Others, not so much, but that has been changing over recent years. The latest to get an upgrade is Old Grand-Dad, which just released an expensive 16-year-old version of this bourbon classic, and we got an early taste.
Old Grand-Dad is one of Beam’s bottom shelf brands, but the fact is that bourbon drinkers in the know really love this inexpensive whiskey. Raymond B. Hayden created the brand in the late 1800s and named it after his grandfather, Basil Hayden Sr.—a name that is surely familiar to fans of Basil Hayden bourbon (the elder Hayden’s face is on the bottle). The brand changed hands over the years, ultimately becoming part of National Distillers Group. In 1987, Old Grand-Dad was sold to Fortune Brands, which later became Beam, then Beam Suntory, and finally Suntory Global Spirits as it’s known today.
Old Grand-Dad is part of Beam’s Olds lineup, which is rounded out by Old Overholt and Old Crow. We’ve covered the upgrades that Old Overholt has gotten over the past few years, including excellent cask strength 10 and 11-year-old rye whiskeys. Old Crow, on the other hand, has not gotten any special attention (so far), and remains a cheap, mediocre bourbon. Old Grand-Dad is made from the same high-rye mashbill as Basil Hayden (said to be 63 percent corn, 2 percent rye, and ten percent malted barley), so there are some similarities between the two bourbons. The core Old Grand-Dad expression is bottled at 80 proof, the same as Basil Hayden, but there are also two other versions: a bottled-in-bond 100 proof expression, and a stronger 114-proof expression.
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Old Grand-Dad 16 Year has been available to people in select parts of the country for a few weeks now, but according to the distillery this is a very limited release that will not be repeated. Of course, that doesn’t mean there won’t be other special releases from this brand, and based on the quality of this bourbon, I hope there are. I’ve been lucky enough to try older Basil Hayden straight from the barrel in one of Beam’s warehouses at a very high proof. That was delicious, and led me to ask eighth-generation Beam distiller Freddie Noe, the man who created Little Book, if he would ever consider releasing Basil Hayden at a higher proof. The answer was a definitive no—that’s just not what Basil Hayden is supposed to be.
But that’s where Old Grand-Dad comes in, because this is basically like trying an older, higher proof version of BH. This new whiskey was bottled at 100 proof, which is the sweet spot for bourbon in my opinion. Sixteen years in oak has turned this liquid into something special—the rye spice is still present, but there are delicious notes of barrel char, molasses, ripe plum, cherry, leather, and pipe tobacco. This is a fantastic sipping bourbon that you wouldn’t necessarily want to waste on a cocktail… but it would certainly be delicious if you decided to.
Old Grand-Dad 16 Year is available now for a suggested price of $200, placing it well beyond the brand’s other expressions. You can find it for sale from Total Wine, along with the other cheaper expressions in the lineup.
