This Year’s Pricey ‘Bourbon Release Month’ Is Worthy Of A Song

The unofficial Bourbon Release Season—mid-August through mid-September—is officially underway as a flurry of offerings fell late last month. This used to be the most wonderful time of the year for American whiskey fans because such special bottles cost double digits and weren’t too hard to acquire.

Tis like that no more. Whatever bottles from this new and impressive crop of releases trickle down to a liquor store will go directly behind the counter on some high and out of reach shelf or behind the glass of a prissy locked case. Worse, some may never even make it to the floor. Those are sold when a prized customer appears, the store owner slips behind the curtain, reemerges with a paper sack weighing roughly 3 pounds and mumbles stern instructions to go straight to the cashier without peeking at its contents or uttering a word to anyone.

I’ve chosen to deal with my own simmering release season angst with this riff on the classic Christmas carol, “Deck the Walls.” (Click this link if you’ve never heard it. This is Nat King Cole’s version.)

Verse 1

August kicks off “Release Season”

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

Prices soar beyond all reason

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

Got to have that pricey bottle

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

Buy it now, dude, don’t dare dawdle

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

Verse 2

Lines so long, gosh see them stretchin’

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

Only twenty will be gettin’

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

“Will you share some?” No not maybe

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

Sip it, flip it, it’s your baby

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

Verse 3

Store it in your secret closet

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

Act as if you never bought it

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

Keep it from the light of daytime

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

Tell us that you’ll drink it sometime

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

Verse 4

Secondary price is frightening

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

Husbands, wives oh they’ll be fighting

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

Buy it from a total stranger

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

College funds are now in danger

Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

With that foolishness behind us, let’s move to this year’s regular and most anticipated fall releases.

Parker’s Heritage Collection Cask Strength Rye Whiskey: This, the seventeenth release in the Parker’s Heritage Collection, is a delicious 10-year-old rye clocking in at 128.8 proof. It drinks amazingly soft at that proof and is rich enough let roll around your mouth for a spell to experience it all. Though I need no reminder of why I love rye, this one is a welcome reminder.

Doubtless, that whiskey’s richness was helped by how they were aged: on the first floors of three rickhouses on Heaven Hill’s main Bardstown campus and two houses on its Deatsville grounds. Long aging at low temps, you gotta love it.

MSRP is $185—the only price in this year’s release bag not ending in 9.99.

Four Roses 2023 Limited Edition Small Batch: This release is always a highlight of the “season” because of its former context. The release began at Four Roses’ visitor centers on the second Friday in September, and jovial crowds of 100 or so (quaint, huh?) gathered to get those bottles. Since COVID, the brand switched to an online lottery system to eliminate the crowd crush. Can’t blame them for that.

Anyway, this is an LESB like none other: bolder, more complex and dryer than others past—but still fully fantastic Fo’ Ro’. Master distiller Brent Elliott aims a unique blend with each release, and this one achieved that. At 108-proof, this blend of four Four Roses recipes—12, 14, 16 and 25 years old—is a big pour but without the punch of high proof to the nostrils and palate. Call it sturdy and sophisticated and made for long, studied sipping.

MSRP: $199.99. This is the highest priced LESB yet, but only a fraction of what it’ll demand on the secondary.

Old Forester 2023 Birthday Bourbon: This is the twenty-third edition of this bourbon, which commemorates founder George Garvin Brown’s Sept. 2 birthday. Some years this release is brilliant and proves my belief that Old Forester is Brown-Forman’s best whiskey. Other years, not so much. 2019 remains one of my favorite whiskeys ever, while 2020 … well let’s forget about that and mentally revisit 2015, another spectacular pour.

2023 lies somewhere in between while leaning toward the good. It’s all classic Old Fo’: maple-acetone aroma and a basket of cooked stone fruit across the palate. That it’s a little drier than I like isn’t surprising given the 103 barrels in this batch were aged 12 years on the fifth floor of a heat-cycled warehouse. It starts off bold and fruity before a quick, dry finish that doesn’t linger.

Newish master taster Melissa Rift said this was her year to watch and learn about how to make a Birthday blend. Next year, she’ll oversee this release.

MSRP: $169.99. I recall Brown-Forman master distiller, Chris Morris, telling me five years ago, “When we launched it at $39.99, it just sat on the shelves.” That doesn’t happen anymore, even at $169.99—if you can find it at that price.