Old Forester Bourbon

Buy Old Forester Bourbon online and own bottles from America’s first bottled bourbon brand a continuously operating whiskey lineage that has never changed hands outside the Brown family since 1870 shipped directly to your door. Checkout is fast, every bottle is sourced from authorized inventory, and limited releases like the annual Birthday Bourbon sell through immediately upon arrival. Browse the full Old Forester collection in the grid below and add your expression to cart before allocated stock moves.

The Legacy of Old Forester Bourbon

Old Forester holds a distinction no other American whiskey brand can claim: it is the only bourbon to have been sold continuously before, during, and after Prohibition without interruption. George Garvin Brown founded the brand in Louisville, Kentucky in 1870 with a singular innovation he sealed his whiskey in glass bottles rather than selling it by the barrel or jug, guaranteeing consistent quality and tamper-proof provenance at a time when adulterated spirits were standard practice across the industry. That bottling decision made Old Forester the first bourbon brand to guarantee quality by the bottle, a move that predated the Bottled-in-Bond Act by nearly three decades and established Brown-Forman the company George Garvin Brown built around it as one of the foundational institutions of American whiskey. Brown-Forman remains family-controlled to this day, making Old Forester one of the longest continuously family-owned spirit brands in United States history.

Old Forester’s production home returned to its Louisville roots in 2018 when Brown-Forman opened the Old Forester Distilling Co. on Whiskey Row the historic stretch of West Main Street in downtown Louisville where the American whiskey industry was largely built in the 19th century. The facility operates as both a working distillery and a full visitor experience, producing Old Forester’s entire core and premium lineup on-site in the heart of the city where the brand was born. The house mash bill is a rye-forward recipe that drives the signature spice, dark fruit, and structured oak character consistent across every expression in the lineup. Old Forester’s master tasters maintain a sensory panel evaluation process for every production batch a formalized quality control protocol that Brown documented in writing as early as the 1870s and that the distillery still uses today as the final release checkpoint before any bottle reaches market.