This Cult-Favorite Bourbon Gets Its First High-Age Statement Release—and We Got a Taste
James B. Beam Distilling has released a 16-year Old Grand-Dad bourbon, the cult favorite brand’s oldest expression by a huge stretch. It’s the first high-age statement offering since Beam acquired OGD in 1987 from National Distillers, and the 100-proof bottle marks the start of a new era for the storied brand.
Old Grand-Dad has chugged along since 1882 with little fanfare, barely updating the label over the last century. Yet the high-rye bourbon has found generation after generation of dedicated fans. It’s a low-key cultural icon that's made appearances across 20th century American literature, with cameos in works by Raymond Chandler, John Steinbeck, and Cormac McCarthy—and note that Steinbeck’s novel was nonfiction.
Today, the love and appreciation continues. It comes in 80-, 100-, and 114-proof bottlings, none of which are hard to find or hard on your wallet. Each version delivers a load of cinnamon—without added spice—from at least four-year-old juice. At Men’s Journal, the 114-proof OGD is our favorite bottle for mixing old fashioneds, and across the service industry it acts as a bartender’s handshake for many. However, you usually only see it in a bar well or near the floor at a liquor store. It doesn’t have celebs endorsing it, let alone a vibrant Insta feed, or an X account making snarky replies to @FireballWhisky.
The announcement of the 16-year Old Grand-Dad earlier this year caught fans by surprise, but the enthusiasm for the new release has been tremendous, says Tim Heuisler, global whiskey ambassador for Beam Distilling.
“We did a preliminary release during the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, and we sold hundreds of cases out the door with a one bottle limit per person,” he says.
Matt Allyn
The whiskey that ended up sitting for 16 years is the standard Old Grand-Dad distillate, using its longtime yeast strain from National Distillers and mash bill of 63 percent corn, 27 percent rye, and 10 percent malted barley. But back in 2008, Beam had no plan to eventually release this relatively ancient version. Heuisler credits the Beam production team at the Frankfort, Ky, warehousing and bottling plant for identifying OGD barrels worth setting aside and monitoring their development over the years.
I received a sample of Old Grand-Dad 16 and as I was pouring it into my Glencairn, the aroma jumped out to hit me before I had a chance to pick it up for a nosing. It smelled of caramel and rye baking spices over pie crust with a touch of cherry and smoky barbecue.
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The flavor is a little nuttier, and that pie crust character sweetens to spice cake. After the initial taste rolled over my tongue, I was shocked by a sudden swerve into macerated strawberries before clove, allspice, and char smoke returned in the finish.
It’s a wonderful sipper, a truly fun bourbon, and I wouldn’t have minded enjoying more. While it doesn’t pack the punch of a barrel-proof release—as some OGD fans bemoaned online—this is a fantastic rye-forward bourbon with impressive depths that retains a pleasant touch of that Old Grand-Dad cinnamon tingle.
The suggested retail price is $195 and when the release is gone, that’s it. There’s no batch of 15-year-old barrels waiting for 2025. However, Heuisler says that the 16-Year should be the first of many releases from Beam’s innovation pipeline for Old Grand-Dad.
“I can say this is probably just the start of what you're going to see coming from Old Grand-Dad,” says Heuisler. “We're just scratching the surface.”