America’s oldest bourbon brand just announced its oldest expression yet.
On Thursday, Old Forester released the 150th Brown-Forman Decanter, which houses 12 ½-year old bourbon distilled in celebration of Brown-Forman’s 150th birthday.
The bourbon was aged for 150 months in the Louisville, Ky. distillery’s Warehouse J, inside six barrels hand-selected by master distiller Chris Morris in April 2008. In 2020, 750 decanters were filled with the fully-matured whiskey, with 500 crafted for the Brown family and the remaining 150 set aside for special tastings and events. With the Covid-19 outbreak mandating a cease in all social gathering, those 150 bottles were forced into storage, where they remained until now.
The rare whiskey is housed in a sleek decanter, which pays homage to the design of the iconic Old Forester holiday decanters of the 1950s and 1960s imagined by famed industrial designer Raymond Lowey. Each decanter is sold in a custom wooden box crafted from wood recovered from a 2015 fire on Whiskey Row that nearly destroyed the historic Louisville block.
“Old Forester is the only bourbon to exist before, during, and after Prohibition,” said Old Forester master taster Melissa Rift in the press release. “What better way to celebrate that legacy than offering to the public this rare decanter.”
Bottled at 50 percent ABV, each decanter is priced at $2,500 and is currently available for sale while supplies last on Old Forester’s website. Pickup will be available at the distillery on December 5, the anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. Along with the decanter, each purchase includes a private VIP tour of the Old Forester distillery and cocktails with members of the Brown family.