It’s not bathtub bourbin, but the spirit is the same
You would think the bourbon industry would want to forget all about Prohibition, the years between 1920 and 1933 when all-but-medicinal alcohol beverages were illegal and most distilleries closed or switched products.
You would be wrong.
To mark the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition, Old Forester Distillery in Louisville is issuing Old Forester Repeal Bourbon in late November.
The bourbon will come in “a mock circa-1933 375 milliliter bottle and carry an Old Forester replica label from that era,” the company says.
The bottle will be part of a gift pack “which in most markets will include a scroll of the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which ended Prohibition, an Old Forester snifter, and an Old Forester pen.”
The suggested price is $29.99. Only 2,700 cases of the bourbon were produced.
So why is Old Forester stirring up Prohibition?
The company, which bottled its first bourbon in 1870, says it has something to crow about.
“Old Forester is the only bourbon in existence today that has been sold continuously for over a century, including between the Prohibition years of 1920 and 1933 when it received one of only 10 government permits to produce bourbon for medicinal purposes …,” it says.
“No other bourbon sold in the U.S. today can make that claim.”
