Old Forester is bringing back its President's Choice Single Barrel program with a two-SKU drop timed to National Bourbon Day, releasing both a bourbon and a rye expression on June 13 at a $225 suggested retail price. The launch also marks the eighth anniversary of the brand's flagship distillery on Louisville's Main Street Bourbon Row, giving distributor partners a built-in occasion narrative to activate across on- and off-premise accounts.
The President's Choice lineup enters the market in limited quantities, a deliberate supply constraint that has become a standard lever for premium bourbon suppliers looking to sustain shelf velocity and protect brand equity. The rye expression returns for the second consecutive year, signaling Brown-Forman's intent to build a repeatable annual cadence for the program rather than treat it as a one-off release. At $225 per bottle, both SKUs sit firmly in the ultra-premium tier, where depletions are driven less by everyday off-premise foot traffic and more by allocated placements at specialty retailers, whiskey bars, and direct distillery sales.
From a route-to-market standpoint, the restricted allocation model puts pressure on wholesalers to triage placements carefully. Single-barrel limited releases at this price point typically bypass broad planogram distribution and instead flow through hand-selected on-premise accounts and independent off-premise specialists with strong whiskey programs. Distributor sales reps will need to balance demand from existing accounts against new account development, particularly in markets outside Kentucky where Old Forester's distillery anniversary story carries less ambient weight. For context on how limited-allocation bourbon is reshaping wholesaler inventory strategy, see our coverage of premium spirits supply-chain trends and Brown-Forman's broader portfolio distribution moves.
The dual-expression structure — one bourbon, one rye — also reflects a broader supplier play to cross-sell within the whiskey category. Rye has gained measurable on-premise traction over the past three years as bartenders diversify whiskey well pours and cocktail menus, and pairing a rye alongside the flagship bourbon release lets Old Forester capture incremental depletions from accounts that might not pull both expressions otherwise. Cold-chain considerations are minimal at this ABV range, but retail display execution, including end-cap positioning and staff education at specialty retailers, will be a key depletion driver given the price point.
With excise tax pressure and input costs still weighing on margins across the distilled spirits segment, limited high-margin releases like President's Choice serve a dual commercial purpose: they generate outsized revenue per case equivalent while reinforcing the brand's positioning at the top of the bourbon shelf. How quickly these allocations move through the three-tier system in non-Kentucky markets will be a useful read on consumer willingness to spend at the $200-plus price band heading into the back half of 2026.
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.
