Old Forester, the Louisville, Kentucky brand that bills itself as America’s first bottled bourbon, just released the newest entry in its 117 Series: Triple Char Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky.
The milestone here isn’t only the char — at least, not entirely. It’s also that Triple Char is the first Old Forester expression made entirely from whiskey distilled at the brand’s Main Street distillery.
For those not familiar with the robust network of distillery-experience setups in Kentucky (can’t blame you on this one), here’s some context: Old Forester Distillery opened in downtown Louisville’s historic Whiskey Row in 2018, and it’s a working distillery, not just a visitor center with a gift shop attached.
A lot of big-name brands have a similar setup, but being able to actually use one to produce a consistent product (and not just samples for visitors, say) is a totally different level.
To mark the occasion, Old Forester charred the barrels three times longer than its standard specification, pushing more oak character into the whiskey than a typical release.
That means bigger interaction between spirit and wood — more color, more spice, more of that burnt-sugar depth a whiskey can get from a heavily toasted barrel. The Triple Char comes in at 115 proof and ships in 375 mL bottles.
Why the Main Street milestone matters
Old Forester is Brown-Forman’s founding brand; the company was built around it in 1870 by George Garvin Brown, and the family still runs it, five generations later. That’s a longer, more direct line of ownership than most of what’s left in American whiskey, where brands get bought, sold, and merged into somebody else’s portfolio every few years.
The 117 Series has always been where Old Forester runs its experiments — different barrels, unusual finishes, one-off techniques — since it first launched in 2021. But every previous release, including 1910 Extra Extra Old and Whiskey Row Fire, still traced back to whiskey distilled elsewhere in the Brown-Forman system.
Triple Char breaks that. It’s the first proof that Main Street isn’t just a tourist stop bottling somebody else’s juice — it’s now capable of producing a complete release start to finish. For a distillery that’s spent seven years building up production capacity in the middle of downtown Louisville, that’s a real threshold to cross.
Where to Buy It
Triple Char is limited and runs $64.99 for a 375 mL bottle, available at the Old Forester Distillery on Main Street and select Kentucky retailers. No online shipping mentioned this time, so this one’s mostly a trip-to-Louisville bottle.
