Old Forester Distilling Co.

Old Forester is the bourbon brand that essentially invented sealed-bottle bourbon. In 1870, the pharmaceutical salesman George Garvin Brown started bottling his whiskey in sealed glass — the first bourbon sold exclusively this way, a radical move at a time when whiskey was almost universally sold by the barrel and adulterated at every step of the distribution chain. Brown's bet that the brand on the bottle could guarantee quality launched Brown–Forman Corporation, which still controls the brand 155 years later, and still bottles Old Forester continuously: the only bourbon to remain in production under the same brand name before, during, and after Prohibition.

The "during Prohibition" qualifier is the loud one. When the Volstead Act shut down American distilling in 1920, Brown–Forman received one of only six licenses authorizing lawful bourbon production for medicinal purposes. The brand survived the dry years intact and emerged in 1933 with a customer base, a supply chain, and a label nobody else could claim.

The distillation happens at Brown-Forman's Shively facility outside Louisville, but the visitor experience lives in downtown Louisville at the Old Forester Distilling Co. on Whisky Row — a working distillery, cooperage demonstration, and visitor center occupying the brand's original 1882–1919 building on West Main Street, restored and reopened to the public in 2018. It's one of the few Kentucky distillery experiences that puts you inside a historic urban building rather than out in the rolling country, and the on-site cooperage demo is the only public production cooperage tour you can do in the United States.

Mash bill: 72% corn, 18% rye, 10% malted barley — high enough rye content that the spice and pepper character separate Old Forester from the wheated and lower-rye competition. The current range runs from Old Forester Classic at 86 proof, through Old Forester Signature at 100 proof, then up the historic-revival ladder: 1870 Original Batch, 1897 Bottled in Bond, 1920 Prohibition Style, and the annual Birthday Bourbon release that has shipped every year since 2002 and routinely sells out the day it hits shelves.