Old Forester President’s Choice Bourbon and Rye go on sale June 13, 2026 at 10 a.m. ET. Here’s the price, proof range, and exactly where to buy before it sells out.
If you have been waiting for the year’s most serious whiskey purchase, the calendar just gave you a deadline.
Old Forester announced today that President’s Choice, its rarest annual release and the one collectors genuinely compete for, returns on June 13, 2026, with two expressions: President’s Choice Bourbon and President’s Choice Rye.
Both retail for $225. Both will sell out. The launch is at 10 a.m. ET, and this opportunity does not reward hesitation.
What President’s Choice Actually Is
Old Forester has a problem most distilleries would trade their entire rickhouse inventory to have: too many exceptional barrels.
The standard production line, the one that fills the everyday 86 proof bottle that has been on back bars since 1870, requires consistency above all else. Same mash bill, same yeast, same entry proof, same target flavor profile year after year. The system works because it ignores outliers. It has to.
President’s Choice is what happens to the outliers.
The program traces to a specific decision made in 1964 by George Garvin Brown II, then president of the company, to offer private single barrel selections to buyers who understood that the warehouse’s best barrel and the warehouse’s average barrel are fundamentally different products. That practice, pull the exceptional ones, don’t blend them away, became the intellectual foundation for what is now an annual release program built around one question: which barrels are too good to standardize?
Master Taster Melissa Rift and her team answer that question the same way every year: by tasting through the inventory and selecting for what she calls “maturity, complexity and distinct character” — which in practice means walking away from barrels that are merely very good. The ones that survive end up in President’s Choice. Everything else, including a lot of whiskey that would headline other distilleries’ premium releases, goes back into the blend.
This year’s selections are aged between 7 and 9 years and bottled at proof points ranging from 110 to 125 — high enough to carry the barrel’s full character into the glass without water diluting the argument.
The Rye Returns
The bourbon is the expectation. The rye is the more interesting conversation.
American rye whiskey has spent the last decade being pulled in two directions simultaneously: mass-produced versions chasing the category’s growth, and a smaller number of serious producers treating rye the way bourbon’s best distilleries treat their allocated releases — as a grain with a specific flavor identity worth developing rather than approximating. Old Forester is in the second group, and their rye program has the receipts.
For the second consecutive year, a rye expression sits alongside the bourbon in the President’s Choice lineup. That continuity matters. A single-year rye release can be a novelty. A second consecutive year with the same criteria — same age range, same proof window, same single-barrel hand-selection protocol — is a program. It means Old Forester is willing to be held accountable to a rye standard year over year, not just when a particularly good barrel happens to clear the bar.
At 7-to-9 years and 110-plus proof, this is rye whiskey making a specific argument about what the grain can do with time. Rye’s natural spice profile tightens and deepens with age in ways that younger expressions can’t access. The proof ensures that argument arrives uncut. Whether it’s more persuasive than the bourbon is a question worth $225 of your own research — but it is a genuinely different question, which is the point.
June 13: Two Occasions, One Release
The June 13 launch date carries specific meaning. It marks the eighth anniversary of Old Forester’s distillery opening on Main Street in Louisville — a facility that brought the brand’s production back to its historical home on Whiskey Row. National Bourbon Day follows on June 14. The timing is deliberate: a distillery birthday and a category holiday, separated by 24 hours, with the year’s most coveted bottle available in between.
Bottles go on sale at 10 a.m. ET on Saturday, June 13 at Old Forester Distillery in Louisville and online at shop.oldforester.com.
Online shipping is available in a limited number of states: D.C., Kentucky, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and North Dakota. If you are not in those markets and cannot get to Louisville, your best option is a retailer who has already allocated stock — and those conversations are worth having now rather than on Friday.
“Craftsmanship is at the heart of every Old Forester bottle and both this bourbon and rye selection are the peak expressions we offer.”
Caleb Trigo
Assistant Master Distiller
From a distillery that has been making the same base whiskey for 156 years, that is not a throwaway line.
Why $225 Is the Right Price to Have an Opinion About
At $225, President’s Choice is a considered purchase. It is also, within the landscape of allocated American whiskey, not an unreasonable one.
Pappy Van Winkle expressions trade at multiples of their MSRP on the secondary market.
Buffalo Trace Antique Collection bottles routinely disappear into retailer back rooms before a public allocation is announced. President’s Choice is $225 at suggested retail from a distillery that actually wants its customers to buy the bottle at that price. In a category where the entire game is managed scarcity, a nationally announced release with a specific time and date is almost anomalously straightforward.
That said: limited means limited. “Limited quantities” in Old Forester’s language has historically meant the release is gone within hours of launch. The 10 a.m. ET window is the entire opportunity for most buyers.
For the Collector’s Shelf and the Glass
Single barrel releases at this proof range and age profile are dual-purpose bottles in the best sense — serious enough to hold, interesting enough to open. A bourbon and a rye from the same release year, both hand-selected by the same tasting team using the same criteria, is also a comparative exercise worth making: two different grains, the same philosophy, the same year. That is a collection of two bottles with something to say to each other.
Old Forester has been making that argument since 1870. President’s Choice is where the argument gets its most persuasive.
Mini FAQ
When does Old Forester President’s Choice 2026 go on sale, and what should I do right now? The launch is Saturday, June 13 at 10 a.m. ET — simultaneously at Old Forester Distillery in Louisville and online at shop.oldforester.com. “Limited quantities” in Old Forester’s release history means hours, not days. If you’re outside the five states that receive online shipping (D.C., Kentucky, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota), the time to contact your allocated whiskey retailer is today, not Friday.
Is $225 a fair price for President’s Choice? In the context of the allocated American whiskey market, yes — and the reasoning matters. Pappy Van Winkle and Buffalo Trace Antique Collection expressions routinely trade at two to four times MSRP on the secondary market, with no guarantee of buying at retail. President’s Choice has a public launch time, a distillery purchase option, and an online store. You are paying $225 for the whiskey. The secondary market would charge you $225 for the privilege of finding out it exists.
Bourbon or rye — which should I buy? If you can only buy one: the bourbon is the safer expression of Old Forester’s core identity. If you can buy both: the rye is the more intellectually interesting purchase. A single-barrel rye at this age and proof from a distillery with 156 years of production history is a category argument in a bottle. Tasting them side by side against the same selection criteria, the same year, is the kind of comparative exercise that justifies the shelf space.
What does single barrel mean for President’s Choice specifically? Every bottle in the President’s Choice release comes from one individual barrel — not a blend of barrels, not a vatting of similar profiles. That means the bourbon you buy and the bourbon someone else buys may be from different barrels with different proof points within the 110–125 range. The variation is the product. It’s also why the release is genuinely limited: when that barrel is gone, that specific whiskey is gone permanently.
