Brown-Forman Backs Old Forester With $30 Million Distillery Investment

Brown-Forman is planning to open a new distillery and visitor center for its Old Forester Bourbon on Louisville’s Main Street that should allow it to double production of the growing brand. The $30 million project on Louisville’s “Whiskey Row” is expected to be completed by fall 2016 and will showcase Old Forester’s 140-year heritage as the first bottled Bourbon, the company says.

The new distillery will be located in two historic buildings—117 and 119 Main Street—which were built in 1857 and over the years were used for warehousing whiskey produced at various distilleries in the area. Brown-Forman itself occupied 117 Main Street from 1900 to 1919.

The Old Forester distillery project will house fermentation, distilling, barrel-making, filling and dumping and bottling operations for Old Forester, the company’s founding Bourbon brand. Brown-Forman now owns five buildings on Louisville’s revitalized Main Street.

Old Forester has thrived amid Bourbon’s boom, enjoying a 16% net sales rise on a 7% depletions gain in Brown-Forman’s last fiscal year, ended in April. According to Impact Databank, the brand was up 4% to 94,000 cases in the U.S. market in calendar 2013.

Tagged : Brown-Forman, Old Forester Bourbon

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