Old Forester is releasing the latest iteration of its President's Choice Single Barrel series on June 13, bringing two limited-edition expressions — a bourbon and a rye — to retail shelves nationwide at $225 per bottle, the Brown-Forman-owned distillery announced Sunday.
The dual release marks the second consecutive year that the rye expression has appeared in the President's Choice lineup, a detail brand executives have positioned as a signal of sustained consumer appetite for premium American rye whiskey. Quantities for both expressions will be constrained, a deliberate scarcity strategy the brand has employed across previous President's Choice drops to support shelf pricing and secondary-market demand.
The June 13 on-sale date carries symbolic weight for the Louisville-based producer. The distillery aligns the release with National Bourbon Day — an annual, informal industry event that has grown into a measurable sales catalyst for Kentucky producers — and with the eighth anniversary of the opening of Old Forester's flagship distillery on Whiskey Row, the revitalized stretch of West Main Street in Louisville that has become a focal point of bourbon tourism infrastructure. The distillery drew significant capital investment when it opened in 2018 and has since become a key driver of Kentucky's spirits tourism economy.
The $225 price point places the President's Choice expressions firmly in the ultra-premium single-barrel segment, a tier that has outpaced volume growth across the broader American whiskey category in recent years even as overall bourbon shipment volumes have moderated from pandemic-era highs. Analysts tracking the brown spirits market have noted that limited allocations at elevated price points have proven more resilient to inventory correction pressures than mass-market expressions. For more context on pricing dynamics across the premium spirits shelf, Food & Beverage Magazine has tracked how collector-tier releases are reshaping distillery revenue mix.
Old Forester, which bills itself as America's first bottled bourbon, sits within Brown-Forman's portfolio alongside brands including Woodford Reserve and Jack Daniel's. The company has leaned into heritage positioning and distillery-anchored retail experiences as competitive differentiators at a moment when the broader premium spirits allocation market faces tightening distributor margins and retailer pushback on speculative inventory builds.
The two President's Choice expressions will be available in limited quantities at select retailers nationwide beginning June 13.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
