Old Forester 2025 Birthday Bourbon

Released every Sep. 2 to commemorate the birthday of George Garvin Brown (happy 179th, George!), Old Forester’s Birthday Bourbon is one of the brand’s hallmark releases — and one of the hardest to find. Always a Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, these days it tends to clock in with a 12-year age statement, and it’s generally bottled at 92 proof.

The latest release features both those numbers on the label, but there’s a big twist hiding behind the whiskey. Indeed, 2025 marks the first year Birthday Bourbon has ever featured whiskey made with a “sweet mash” technique. Normally, Old Forester products (and indeed most bourbon) is made using a “sour mash,” wherein a portion of the previous run’s “setback” is added during fermentation. This process generally helps jumpstart fermentation while controlling pH and protecting against unwanted bacteria. While sweet mash bourbon isn’t unheard of, it’s generally a process that demands even more precision and cleanliness in production.

All 210 barrels used in this release were filled on April 5, 2013, and the whiskey was aged in Brown-Forman Warehouse K, Floors 1 and 5. According to Old Forester, this sweet mash fermentation process results in a “silky and sweet flavor profile” that fits the expression well at 92 proof.

Nose

This year’s Birthday Bourbon may be sweet instead of sour mash, but there are a lot of aromas familiar to the expression: hot pralines, cooked bananas, and baked apples all lead with intensity appropriate for the whiskey’s 92 proof. A slightly uncharacteristic — but delightful — thread of strawberry jam wafts out of the glass. Further on comes milk chocolate and toffee. Those notes build significantly with more time, such that they eventually become most dominant. That develops alongside some tannins in line with both jasmine blossom tea and toasted oak, which punctuate just enough to remind us of this whiskey’s dozen-plus years in cask.

Even just on the nose, it’s fun to see the 2025 batch bring elements characteristic of Birthday Bourbon — especially since it builds on those blue chip scents and then gradually push things in a more floral direction.

Taste

A first sip doesn’t boast a huge burst of flavor, and it takes another taste for things to really settle in. Spiced apple butter and cream soda slide from front to back across the palate, along with faint notes of green apples and pears. By the midpalate, flavors settle into smoked butterscotch candy, mostly sweet with tiny hints of mesquite, burnt ends, and caramelized BBQ sauce. Those meaty flavors also oscillate back and forth to clove-studded, pineapple-glazed ham; fortunately, at no point does the umami character drown out the sweet fruit.

Ultimately, the bourbon’s main flavors coalesce at the intersection of cooked pineapple, berry-infused tea, glazed meat, and a dark butterscotch, right on the verge of burning. It’s certainly pleasant, but with a catch: there’s not quite enough viscosity for those flavors to stick around very long. We’re left with a pour that takes a few sips to find its stride. Once it does, there are some flashes of brilliant, complex balance — but those fall away quicker than expected on the midpalate, leaving behind some lingering yet indeterminate sweetness.

Finish

Despite the quick back palate, the finish is defined enough to stand on its own — but again, not for terribly long. Tropical fruit carries a lot of weight here, with pineapple juice punctuating the very end of the sip.