Saturday morning, June 13, at exactly 10 a.m. ET, Old Forester opens the door to its most carefully selected barrels of the year. You have a short window before they're gone — and if you're outside Kentucky, DC, Nebraska, New Hampshire, or North Dakota, you're limited to making the trip to Louisville.
This is President's Choice 2026, Old Forester's annual single-barrel release, announced June 10. For the second year running, it comes in both a bourbon and a rye expression.
What You're Actually Buying
President's Choice isn't a blended expression or a small-batch compromise. Each bottle comes from a single barrel, hand-selected by Campbell Brown — the fifth-generation Brown family member who runs Old Forester — alongside Master Taster Melissa Rift. The 2026 specs:
- President's Choice Bourbon: Single barrel, minimum 8 years, 62.6% ABV (125.2 proof), Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
- President's Choice Rye: Single barrel, minimum 10 years, 62.4% ABV (124.8 proof), Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey
Both are $225 a bottle. As Rift described the process: "It's always an exciting time for us to bring the next iteration of President's Choice to whiskey enthusiasts who truly cherish exceptional taste. Our process of tasting each barrel is rooted in the history of this label, and this year's release is no exception."
The History That Justifies the Name
Old Forester is America's longest continuously operating bourbon brand, having run without interruption since 1870 — through Prohibition (it was one of six distilleries licensed to sell for medicinal purposes), two world wars, and every round of corporate consolidation since. The President's Choice tradition dates to 1964, when then-president George Garvin Brown II began setting aside the distillery's most impressive barrels as private gifts for employees and VIPs. Campbell Brown revived the commercial program in 2018, and it went national for the first time in 2025.
That lineage matters when you're deciding if $225 is defensible. You're buying from a distillery with a specific culture around barrel selection — one where the person signing off is a fifth-generation member of the founding family, not a brand manager hired three years ago.
Is $225 the Right Number?
The honest answer: it depends on the barrel, and you won't know which one you're getting until you open it.
What the price does reflect is the market reality around barrel-proof single barrels from established American distilleries. A minimum 10-year single barrel rye at 62.4% ABV is genuinely rare — most American rye aged to a decade gets either held for much higher-end releases or blended away. At $225, you're getting access to something that, if it lands in the right percentile of barrel quality, outpunches bottles sold at three times the price on the secondary market.
The bourbon expression is the safer bet in terms of predictability. Old Forester's mashbill is one of the most consistent in Kentucky, and eight-plus years at barrel proof gives it the structure and depth to compete with allocated bottles at double the price. You're not paying a speculation premium here — you're paying for real age and real proof.
For context on how President's Choice stacks up against the broader premium market, see our guide to premium bourbons over $100 and our definitive 2026 bourbon rankings — both go deep on what you're actually getting at various price points.
How to Get One
Online sales open at 10 a.m. ET, Saturday June 13 at shop.oldforester.com. Shipping is restricted to five jurisdictions: Washington D.C., Kentucky, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and North Dakota. If you're not in one of those, your options are the Old Forester Distillery at 119 West Main Street in Louisville, or calling local whiskey-focused retailers who may have received an allocation.
Old Forester timed the drop to kick off National Bourbon Week, which runs June 14–21 in Bardstown with 10 partner distilleries running special pours and events. If you're making the trip to Bardstown — our Kentucky Bourbon Trail guide covers all 68 stops — Louisville is 45 minutes up I-65. The distillery is walkable from the hotel district on West Main Street.
Bourbon or Rye — Pick One
If you can only buy one, buy the rye. The bourbon is excellent and it's what built this program's reputation, but a minimum 10-year single barrel rye at barrel proof is harder to find from any American distillery. Rye grain holds up to extended aging differently than corn — longer time in wood produces something genuinely distinct, not just a denser version of what you'd get at four or five years.
If you want to browse allocated American rye and whiskey for comparison or fill out the shelf around it, CW Spirits carries a solid selection of the bottles worth knowing. The bourbon section here on Boozemakers has more on what to look for across the market.
Set your alarm for Saturday morning. Last year's President's Choice sold through quickly and this year's distribution is no wider. We track bourbon drops like this in the weekly newsletter — grab the free Tasting Journal at /subscribe so the next one doesn't land without warning.
