There's nothing quite like a little bit of day drinking. I've been putting away a few bourbon and Coke cocktails the last few weeks and I figured I'd seek out an old friend, Jim Beam, and see if it's everything I remember. Actually, I found the single barrel variant of JB so why not mix a cocktail and pour myself a dram to review neat. The Jim Beam Single Barrel program is still the normal 4-7 year old white and black label Beam everyone knows (and loves), this just happens to be hand selected barrels making up less than 1% of the stock that's also Barrel strength. This is bottle number 5251 and is 95 proof. I found this bottle locally and paid $32 for a 750ml. On the nose there's typical sweet vanilla and caramel, heavy corn and charred oak. The palate is more of the same, with a bit of orange peel giving a bit of zest to the profile. The finish is relatively smooth with a nice punch from the proof. It's definitely more vibrant than it's normal bottling, but I'm not sure there's a real reason to choose this over the normal white/black label. Especially at $10-15 above the regular stuff. As a mixer, it's still Jim Beam with a slightly harder bite. Still, I'm not sure it warrants a special bottling and increased price. If you like JB I'd recommend sticking to the regular stuff and spend those extra dollars on something more substantial. Cheers.