President’s Choice dates to 1964, when Old Forester president George Garvin Brown II offered private single barrels to customers — at the time, buying one meant buying the whole barrel. The modern label relaunched in 2018 as a distillery-scale rarity and went national in 2025, when a rye expression joined the bourbon; 2026 marked the second consecutive year of both. Barrels are chosen in-house for maturity, complexity and distinct character by Master Taster Melissa Rift and Assistant Master Distiller Caleb Trigo, and each is bottled at its own strength rather than blended toward a target. Old Forester is Brown-Forman’s founding brand, established in Louisville in 1870 by George Garvin Brown, who sealed and signed his bottles as a guarantee of consistency — an irony this label inverts, since its whole premise is that no two bottles match. The 2026 release was announced from Louisville on 8 June and reached national allocation on 13 June.

Every bottle sold through Midnight Whiskey is sourced as an authentic, sealed product and inspected before it ships. Orders are packed with padded, glass-rated handling and require an adult signature (21+) on delivery; we do not ship to anyone unable to verify legal drinking age. For our full sourcing and handling protocols, see our editorial and authentication standards.

What proof is Old Forester President's Choice?

There is no single answer, and that is the nature of the label. President's Choice is a single-barrel release bottled at each individual barrel's own strength, which is written by hand on the front label along with the barrel number and the age. Read the figures on your own bottle — any number quoted generally would belong to a different barrel.

Why does the label have blank spaces on it?

They are completed by hand for each bottle. The President's Choice label leaves the age, the barrel number and the bottling strength open precisely because those values differ from cask to cask, and filling them in individually is how the label has worked since the program's origins. It makes every bottle self-documenting.

What is the history behind President's Choice?

It began in 1964, when Old Forester president George Garvin Brown II offered customers private single barrels — at the time, a purchase meant taking the entire barrel. The modern label relaunched in 2018, went national in 2025 alongside a new rye expression, and returned in 2026 as the brand's rarest annual release, with barrels chosen in-house by Master Taster Melissa Rift and Assistant Master Distiller Caleb Trigo.