Light oak | Mixed nuts | Dried apple | Faint baking spices | Browned butter

Caramel cake | Cinnamon spice | Vanilla syrup | Rye spice | Aged oak | Baked spiced apple | Dash of syrup

Aged oak | Cinnamon stick | Honeycomb | Rye spice | Leather | Chewy mouthfeel

After a 2 year break, the Jim Beam Distillery has brought back the Hardin’s Creek Series with a trio of new releases. A follow-up to the 2023 Hardin’s Creek Kentucky Series, which focused on the three literal places of Hardin’s Creek: specifically, the aging campuses that Beam uses, the Warehouse series narrows the focus to the actual warehouse types that the company uses to age bourbon. The Warehouse Series also employs a new type of packaging, one that Master Distiller Freddie Noe wanted people to take away less of what they initially saw, instead making consumers more curious about the elements that go into the whiskey.

The Warehouse Series is comprised of three bottles, showcasing warehouse R, warehouse W, and warehouse G, each with its own theme. While the proof and age stay the same, Noe stated to us that all whiskeys were aged within 1 month of each other; the changing variable is the number of floors in each warehouse. For Warehouse W, “The Beaver,” the company focuses on a five-story, nearly century-old warehouse that is more typical of the five to seven-story warehouses found throughout Kentucky.

Each of the bottles in the series contains a specific nickname and image. For Warehouse W “The Beaver,” the company chose this image and name because the warehouse “enveloped in the humidity of its damp, creekside location the beaver embodies the warehouse.” Additionally, the bottles all contain a series of graphics that convey different meanings to the bourbon. The number in the top left corner represents the actual release in the series (in this case, 2), the leaf in the lower right stands for the season, the warehouse with a C in it on the upper left stands for Clermont, the powerbar represents ABV, while the hourglass stands for age. It’s a fun nod to fans of Easter eggs who will enjoy the subtle way the brand conveys this information.

The second release in the Hardin’s Creek Warehouse Series, Warehouse W “The Beaver” is reminiscent of a more quintessential Beam bourbon. It starts with scents of mixed nuts up front and pulls in more variation of classic flavor notes at the midpoint. Its aged, chewy finish is a nice way to end the sip and drives home its double-digit age statement.

Compared to the other two releases in the Warehouse Series, Warehouse W “The Beaver” is a step up from “The Mushroom” and about on par with “The Owl”; it’s a slightly elevated pour that highlights many classic Beam notes. That’s also part of the problem with the Warehouse Series. Unless Beam decides to release a set of 200mL bottles of all three releases like they eventually did with the Kentucky Series, the majority of consumers most likely won’t have the opportunity to compare all three against each other. As a standalone bourbon, even with a high asking price, fans will be pleased with what this bourbon has to offer.