It’s been 92 years since the repeal of Prohibition, but December 5th, also known as Repeal Day, is still a day to remember and celebrate for distilleries all over America. It’s especially significant for Old Forester. Founded in 1870, the Kentucky-based distillery is the only one to have been continuously owned by the same company and to have been in operation before, during, and after Prohibition.

If you’re wondering how Old Forester continued to make whiskey during the decade-plus when it was illegal to do so, it’s because bourbon and rye were still available with a doctor’s prescription — the labels clearly, if speciously, stated that the contents of the bottle were “for medicinal use only.”

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In 1929, when supplies of aged whiskey distilled before 1920 were running low, the government instituted a “distilling holiday,” which allowed a few licensed distilleries, among them Old Forester, to make medicine — er, whiskey — for 100 days. The crisis was solved, at least until Repeal took effect four years later.

To commemorate Repeal Day this year, Old Forester is releasing a new bourbon that harkens back to what it was producing during the distilling holiday. Prohibition Era Still Proof Bourbon, part of the brand’s 117 series of limited edition one-off releases, is a liquid reminder of that odd time in the brand’s history.

Prohibition Era Still Proof isn’t the first Old Forester bourbon to harken back to the era before Repeal — its 1920 Prohibition Style is part of the brand’s permanent Whisky Row series. “The 117 series is really a bit of a playground for Melissa (Old Forester’s master taster Melissa Rift) and me to continue to explore different concepts and do new things at a much smaller scale,” assistant master distiller Caleb Trigo explains. “When we started the series, and what we still hold fast to at this point, is that it is supposed to halo back to the Whisky Row series. So each iteration of 117 kind of halos one of the expressions…. We hadn’t really done a lot of exploration with trying to riff off of 1920 because it was super easy to do.

This was just a moment that we felt it would be fun to kind of highlight one of those fun stories for Old Forester during Prohibition.”

Bottled at a hefty 130 proof (65% ABV), Prohibition Era Still Proof is an homage to what Old Forester was producing during distilling holidays, but it’s not an exact recreation. Trigo, along with Old Forester’s master distiller, Chris Morris, searched for historical records to guide them in the creation of the bourbon, but there wasn’t a lot to go on.

“We don’t have a lot of the nitty-gritty details for the distillers’ holiday,” Trigo says. “Morris and I spent some time together, kind of coming up with this. And there’s very little information that we have in our archives.”

“Old Forester was distilled at Stitzel for that 100-day period,” Trigo notes, referring to the distillery that would become part of the famed Stitzel-Weller distillery after Prohibition. “It’s different machines, a different distillation column.

”With so many different variables, we wanted to tell the story of how we persevered from Prohibition, and so at 130 proof, that bottling is really supposed to just highlight the fact that during that time, we actually were distilled at 130 proof,” Trigo adds.

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At the same time, they strove for authenticity. “Everything that we do at Old Forester has to tie back to history in an authentic way,” Trigo emphasizes. “We could, but we choose not to, just say, ‘Oh, we’re just gonna do this iteration at this proof, because people like high proof.’ It was digging through our history to see how we can release something at that higher proof point? And this kind of story just kind of fell in our laps relative to this release.”

The brand’s tasting notes highlight bright orange peel aromas balanced with warm toasted oak and hints of chocolate nougat, hazelnut, and honey. On the palate, a pop of crisp apple segues into decadent baklava and warm cinnamon spice, with an intense finish mingling rye spice and white pepper with a touch of zesty citrus. “It’s 130 proof, but it doesn’t drink like that,” notes Trigo. It’s very palatable.”

Like Prohibition itself, Prohibition Era Still Proof won’t be around forever. It’s available in limited quantities (exact quantities remain undisclosed), with bottles available at select retailers nationwide and at the Old Forester distillery.

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