Jim Beam White Label

Jim Beam White Label is the best selling bourbon in the world. Like Jack Daniel's, Jim Beam is a pop culture icon synonymous with rock and roll, working-class drinkers, and America. Unlike Jack, there is no semantic labelling controversy with Jim Beam; it's bourbon through and through.

So for the sake of this comparative review, I'll taste the whiskeys neat as well as with Coca-Cola and with Ginger Ale since these are the two most common mixers people use.

NEAT

From a Glencairn

• Nose: oak, floral vanilla, citrus, brown sugar, a bit of spice, a touch of barrel char/smoke
• Palate: light bodied, vanilla, citrus, honey, orange zest, a touch waxy, a bit of barrel char
• Finish: medium length, oak, vanilla, caramel, waxy, a very slight barrel char smoke
• Comment: This is a really easy sipper. It's more floral and honey-forward than I remember. Anyone new to the bourbon category can sip this to see what bourbon is about. The lower proof makes it a friendly session bourbon.
• Rating as a neat sipper: 82/100
• Thoughts: As far as sipping Jack vs Jim neat, I'd lean more toward Jim Beam. It's not quite as sweet and has a little more brightness and balance to my palate.

MIXED WITH COCA-COLA

While Jack & Coke was kind of mediocre to my palate, Jim Beam & Coke is another story. I think this mix works brilliantly. Beam is brighter overall and the citrus, vanilla and spice of Beam cut through the Coke's sweetness better than Jack. Jim Beam & Coke tastes like a less sweet version of a vanilla Coke with a lemon wedge. I'll risk the wrath of Lemmy's ghost and say that Jim wins this round for me. Honestly, I don't think Lemmy would have cared what I think anyway.

MIXED WITH GINGER ALE

Ginger Ale was always my preferred mixer when I drank rye. Maybe it stems from an affinity for drinking flat ginger ale as a kid when I was sick and stayed home from school and watched The Price Is Right. Maybe not. Jim Beam and Ginger Ale isn't a bad mix, but it's kind of more of the same, the spice and brightness from the Beam doesn't really add anything since Ginger Ale has those flavours anyway. It's inoffensive but there's no real synergy.

If I had to choose only one, either Jack Daniel's or Jim Beam, to keep as a well whiskey, I'd choose Jim Beam. I enjoy it more neat, on the rocks, and it's not unpleasant with mixers either.

For my 459th Connosr review, and nearly exactly 1 year from the date of my last review, I shall review, for the very first time, Jim Beam White Label. Why Beam White Label 7 1/2 years and 458 reviews later, you ask? Well, looks like I have never bothered to review Jim Beam White Label before, and a whole helluva lot of this stuff is made and drunk, worldwide. Beam White is the No. 2 best-selling whisk(e)y in the US, behind Jack Daniel's Old No. 7. As straight bourbon whiskey with no age statement Jim Beam White Label is assumed to be 4 years old. The reviewed bottle is newly opened. It was a gift from a friend

Nose: somewhat subdued at first, but grows to moderate in intensity; tannic wood, caramel, and muffled vanilla; a little wood spice and slightly sweet. This is certainly pleasant enough, but it is no great shakes and possesses no elements of sublime beauty. The score would be higher if this batch were not overly tannic. Water added improved the nose greatly, harmonising the flavours and smoothing out the rough tannic edge. Score: 18/25 neat; 21/25 with water

Taste: very caramel-y; sweeter in the mouth than on the nose; the tannins and char add some bitterness in the mouth which seems out of place. Otherwise the nose translates rather well to the delivery. Water added mostly just dilutes the flavour in the mouth with only slight improvement. Score: 19/25 neat; 20/25 with water

Finish: medium length, dying on tannic wood which is not so delicious. Water added greatly tamed the nasty finish. Score: 16/25 neat; 20/25 with water

Balance: good balance in the nose, only fair thereafter. Score: 17/25 neat; 20/25 with water added

Total Sequential Score: 70 points neat; 81 points with water added

Strength: moderate strength throughout. Score: 22.5/25

Quality: adequate to good grain flavours; so-so quality of flavours from the wood. Much better with water added. Score: 18/25

Variety: adequate variety only. Score: 17/25

Harmony: too much tannin mars the prospect of good harmony. Once again, much better with water added. Score: 16/25

Total Non-Sequential Score: 73.5 points (all scores here neat)

Comment: well, I've drunk samples of Jim Beam White Label over the years from various bottles, most not owned by me. Jim Beam White Label is what is left over after the high-quality barrels for the Beam premium and super-premium products have been sequestered for more exclusive releases. Beam White probably represents 60+% of the total output of Beam standard moderate rye mashbill bourbon. A review needs to primarily address the whiskey sample at hand. Like all big mass-release brands Jim Beam White Label has a significant range of variation in the tastes and qualities of each batch. This currently reviewed bottle of Beam White Label is probably from one of the lesser batches from which I have sampled. At its best a batch of Jim Beam White Label may be an 85 point whiskey; at its worst, it could rate below 70 points. 40% ABV whiskey from the large American distillers should be considered designed primarily for mixing and cocktails. American distillers have de facto agreed to 43-47% as their estimate for the ideal mass-market distribution ABV for "sipping whiskeys". If they bottle it at 40% ABV they probably do not think that it is for sipping

I was shocked at how much adding water improved this 40% ABV whiskey. I wasn't going to try it with water because it is already only 40% ABV, but that would have been a big mistake. I tried it with water added only out of a sense of completeness. I am very glad that I did. Maybe that is a nod by the distiller that this whiskey will work well with rocks, water, or mixers. If you try to sip your Jim Beam White Label, try it with water if you are not liking it neat

My composite score is for the whiskey at its best, with a couple of drops of water added

A good value bourbon with a good dose of corn & smoke. The young age shows itself with some alcohol harshness but still a whiskey with some character. Good neat, better with ice, and a great mixer.

Way back in the 60s, White Label (with ginger ale or cranberry juice) was my drink of choice. Since then, I really hadn't drank much of JB and hadn't given in much thought. Then a friend from Quebec brought down a couple bottles to share. One of them was a liter bottle of JB (some gift, I thought) the other a 10 yo Whistle Pig (nice!!). We enjoyed the Whistle Pig, but the next afternoon, much to my surprise, I noticed my friend sipping on White Label NEAT. He pronounced it "quite good." I tried it neat and was pleasantly surprised. This was not the same stuff I remembered. I

Color: Old Gold

Nose: Very light and floral. Some vanilla.

Palate: Surprising change from the nose as the palate is quite full bodied. A nice mouth feel with up front brown sugar highlights. Vanilla and licorice make an appearance late with tingling spices.

Finish: Short but solid.

This is never going to be a first tier bourbon, but this bottling was far beyond some of the 50 ratings it has received previously. Try it with an open mind.

Mainstream macro brand. One of the cheapest not only whiskey’s but hard liquors available at my supermarket.

Cracked open a bottle at home. Taste is that of cheap hooch, ABV is the legally min. one (my bottle was 40 % ABV) but this feels like undiluted Russian moonshine. Overly boozy mixed with brown sugar with simple oak & vanilla, almost feels like the added flavourers to it but it is not enough to mask the harsh cheap hooch impression. Oddly at the same this feels watery as well. I tried adding stuff to it in order to make it more drinkable but it didn’t really work. There are more pleasurable ways of getting cheaply drunk.

Jim Beam is an absolutely iconic whiskey, and the distillery puts out some extremely good whiskey (Booker's Small Batch being a prime example). But how about their standard product? I've heard several times that it's a decent mixing whiskey, but to be honest I've never actually tried it myself (since I tend to prefer my whiskey by itself). Recently I was given a bottle, and was interested to see how such a famous whiskey would turn out.

Appearance: pale gold. I generally try not to read too much into colour though, so we'll see how it smells and tastes.

Nose: already this isn't boding well. The nose is weak and the flavours indistinct. Some vanilla, faint glimpses of honey, hints of wet oak, perhaps a touch of cooked apple. Not much else. Neither water nor time can bring out anything more.

Palate: the mouthfeel is incredibly thin and watery, and the flavors are even less intense than the nose. It's also what I would call 'blurry': nothing is distinct or stands out on its own. There are some woody notes, vanilla again, and very strong sweetness of honey and perhaps light caramel.

Finish: Almost absent. A faint, short oak taste and then gone.

Overall impressions: Though I've often heard this described as a 'mixing whiskey' I would have to say that I wouldn't use it in a cocktail myself- it's far too bland and unimpressive. In fact, that's a perfect way to succinctly describe it. It's not actually BAD - there's nothing actively unpleasant about it, certainly. But it's extremely uninteresting. Definitely one to avoid when you're at the liquor store.

I need sample bottles, badly, for a whisky swap with my friend Systemdown. Now I'd scored three of them when I purchased the Auchentoshan sample set, but I needed more.

But where was I to get them? Then I had a what I hope is / will be a great idea. Dan Murphy's has sample bottles of Jim Beam White Label, Jack Daniels, Chivas Regal 12 yr old, Johnnie Walker Black and Red Label. I would pick up a sample of each of these bottles and review it.

Now most of the reviews I've seen so far have been brief, basic, pretty much "Good as a mixer"

Fair enough. But I'm a whisky geek. I wanna tear a whisky apart and KNOW it.

And even better for me hahaha is I've never had Jim Beam, any bottle, or Johnnie Walker Red and Black Labels.

Now the first bottle, Jim Beam White Label, I should add by all technical definitions is no longer a bourbon.

I bet that made you blink.

Didn't it?

See bourbon is supposed to be bottled at no less then 40%ABV. Over here in Australia the Jim Beam White Label is bottled at 37% ABV, as are several other bourbons on the market.

Now to me, a purist, this bugs me because as I said, it's no longer a bourbon, but continuing on.

So I purchase these sample bottles on the way home from work and decide to crack open the whisky I haven't tried and have heard things about for years.

Jim Beam White Label.

I crack open the sample, pour it into my glencairn and notice immediately the bourbon smells that are oh so familiar to me, but with a hint of roughness.

Smells of oak, touches of vanilla, cherries, some licorice are present throughout the nose. But it feels, subdued.

I nose the glencairn for roughly 40 or so minutes, trying to tease more out of the whisky. There might be a touch of honey, but not much else.

I then take a sip, and am surprised, blinking my eyes. It's whisky water.

That's right. Whisky water.

There is practically no mouth feel. I might as well be drinking funny flavored water.

The flavors that stand out are oak, touches of vanilla, some honey and traces of cherries. But for all intents in purposes this is water.

The finish is pretty much nonexistent and is just gone with a faint oak aftertaste.

People say it's a good mixer whisky, I disagree. When I use a whisky in a cocktail I want at least some of the whiskies flavors to come through. With this, the flavors are so muted that I doubt that would occur.

This isn't bad whisky per say, it's just horribly watered down and rough. It runs roughly $35 AUS, which for most people makes them say sure why not, however with much better whiskies available for only five to ten dollars more, why not splurge and get the better whisky.

Look elsewhere if you're interested in a bourbon.

One of my favorite bourbons to mix with sprite or coke. A bit two sweet for me to venture into to trying it on the rocks but perhaps some day. Notes of vanilla oak. Very good bourbon if your a looking to make some mixers....

Nose has a tangy vanilla to it. Has a sweet vanilla flavor with a woody finish. Crisp at the start and a sharp ending.