Old Forester 1920 Prohibition Style Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey75cl
Great bourbon at a great price point that is at barrel strength.
The third member of the Old Forester Whiskey Row Series, which invites bourbon lovers to taste their way through Old Forester history through each unique expression. In 1920, Prohibition began prohibiting the production, transport and sale of alcohol. However, Old Forester was one of six distilleries to receive a permit to continue selling Old Forester for medicinal purposes. Old Forester 1920 Prohibition Style is a small batch of barrels representing a barrel sample that would have been batched at the beginning of Prohibition, resulting in a woodsy and warm Bourbon
To mimic what a barrel proof bourbon would have tasted like during prohibition, 1920 Prohibition Style bourbon is bottled at 115 proof. Why 115 proof? During Prohibition, whiskey was required to be bottled at 100 proof. To keep from adding too much water to the aged whiskey to proof it down to 100 proof, distillers also barrelled whiskey around 100 proof. Brown-Forman (and probably master distiller Chris Morris) estimates that, with “angel’s share,” an aged bourbon would have been about 115 proof out of the barrel.
Tasting Notes
Nose : Strong cherry and dark fruit notes dominate the nose, and some light notes of caramel and seasoned oak linger underneath.
Palate : a very brief berry note leads off the front and the flavour transitions to caramel and toasted nut notes. In the mid-palate, the caramel note drops off and seasoned oak and caramelized sugar lead into a light cream and seasoned oak finish.
Finish : Allspice and black pepper pop initially. They quickly dissipate and leave a long-lingering finish without further introduction of new flavours, but a pleasing end to those introduced on the palate. Dark chocolate, barrel char, and that nuttiness are the most prominent. It’s a nice finish, plain and simple.
About Old Forester
Old Forester is a brand of Kentucky straight bourbon whisky produced by the Brown–Forman Corporation. It has been on the market continuously for longer than any other bourbon (approximately 150 years as of 2020), and was the first bourbon sold exclusively in sealed bottles. It was first bottled and marketed in 1870 by the former pharmaceutical salesman turned bourbon-merchant George Garvin Brown – the founder of the Brown–Forman Corporation (whose descendants still manage the company). During the Prohibition period from 1920 to 1933, Brown–Forman received one of only six licenses authorizing lawful production (for medicinal purposes).
Old Forester is produced under the supervision of Master Distiller Chris Morris (as of 2006)at the Brown–Forman distillery in Shively, Kentucky, (which is located directly adjacent to the pre-merger southwest boundary of Louisville) and at Old Forester Distilling Co. (located in Downtown Louisville on historic Whisky Row in the original building used from 1882 to 1919) using a mash bill of 72% corn (maize), 18% rye, and 10% malted barley[2] (the same mash bill used for Woodford Reserve). Its mash bill has been described as "pretty standard"[2] and "richer in rye than most bourbons".
When the product was introduced in 1870, bottles of Old Forester were sealed as a way to guard against adulteration and substitution of the contents, and were initially sold in pharmacies as a medicinal product. The innovation introduced with Old Forester was not that it was available in such bottles, but that it was the first bourbon to be exclusively available in this fashion – providing a greater level of assurance of quality for that brand relative to other products in the market. This innovation was enabled and further fuelled by emerging advances in the mass production of glass bottles, such as those soon to be developed by Michael Owens. The sealed bottle approach was popular with doctors and with the pharmacists that sold the product, and their approval was touted in advertisements of the product to the general public.
Originally, the product name was spelled "Old Forrester", with a double "r". The product is reported to have been named after a physician Dr. William Forrester who endorsed its consumption, and the renaming is conjectured to have been a way to avoid direct reference to the physician's name. Originally formed by George Garvin Brown and his half-brother John Thompson Street Brown (J.T.S. Brown, who would also later figure into the history of the Four Roses Distillery and inspire the naming of a brand of bourbon produced by Heaven Hill Distilleries), the company that produces the product was originally registered as J. T. S. Brown & Bro., and became Brown–Forman in 1902 after several partnerships and name changes involving partners James Thompson (who was also involved in the Glenmore Distillery Company and created the Old Thompson brand), Henry Chambers, and George Forman. George Garvin Brown became sole owner by 1902, and although Brown–Forman is now a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, the Brown family still controls more than 70% of the voting shares (as of 2010).
To produce his Old Forester product, Brown would initially purchase whiskies from distillers such as John McDougal Atherton and Ben Mattingly, and blend them together. In 1902, he then purchased Mattingly's distillery in the town of Saint Mary in Marion County, Kentucky.
Until Prohibition in the United States began in 1920, Old Forester was the leading brand produced by Brown's company. The company was granted one of the few government licenses to produce medical whiskey, at which time the product became a straight bourbon at 100 proof (previously it had been a blended product). Since then, other brands were acquired by the company, such as Early Times (purchased in 1923, which became America's best-selling bourbon and maintained high sales for 30 years), and Jack Daniel's (purchased in 1956 and as of 2007 the best-selling whiskey of any kind in the world), have become its leading products. Every year since 2002, Old Forester releases a Birthday Bourbon expression, made available exclusively through a national sweepstakes. The winners are chosen on September 2, to commemorate the day of Brown's birth. In August 2016, Old Forester announced the release of its 115-proof "1920 Prohibition Style Bourbon". In 2021, the company announced its latest expression, known as the 117 Series, or the "High Angels' Share".
57.5% ABV
75cl
