Table Of Contents
The Details
| Rating | 85 |
| Style |
Bourbon American Whiskey Whiskey |
| Produced In |
Kentucky United States |
| ABV | 47.5% |
| Availability | Limited |
| Price | $59.99 |
| Reviewed By | |
| Review Updated | 2024-08-12 |
Old Forester The 117 Series Rum Finish Review Review
Launched in 2021, Old Forester’s The 117 Series features a variety of aging techniques, proof points, finishes, and blends to expand on the brand’s flavors in experimental (or pseudo-accidental) ways. Generally released in 375-milliliter packaging, the expressions allow Old Forester fans to taste realms the distillate hasn’t gone before — without committing to a full standard bottle.
As with most experimental lines, it’s tough to predict what you’re going to get. Last year’s bottled-in-bond release was a nearly nine-year expression I found to be one of the brand’s tastiest in years. Others have proven more polarizing to fans of the classic profile parent company Brown-Forman aims for.
In summer 2024, Old Forester followed several other major producers in experimenting with a rum cask finish. (Repeat readers might remember Bardstown Bourbon Company’s highly successful Foursquare Rum collaboration from last year.) This particular release takes standard Old Forester distillate — aged at least four years — and finishes it for around six months in rum barrels from an undisclosed producer.
By now, many bourbon fans have had the chance to try American whiskey finished in rum barrels. Let’s see how Old Forester’s foray into that territory stacks up!
Old Forester The 117 Series Rum Finish: Stats and Availability
As with most Old Forester The 117 Series releases, this rum finish bourbon is sold in 375-milliliter bottles. It’s available at Old Forester’s downtown Louisville retail location, and the brand also ships to select states (Ky., N.Y., N.H., N.D., and D.C.) while supplies last. The bottle is also sold through a handful of select Kentucky retailers. The MSRP for these bottles is around $60, though due to the relative scarcity and difficulty in getting them outside of Kentucky, they often command a bit above that on the secondary market. A lot of those markups depend on the batch itself, with certain well-reviewed and age-stated versions going for a bit higher. Happy hunting.
Old Forester The 117 Series Rum Finish Review
As with all of VinePair’s whiskey reviews, this was tasted in a Glencairn glass and rested for at least five minutes.
Nose
There’s immediately a lot going on at first sniff: buttered popcorn, saltwater taffy, peach rings, and even a little pink cotton candy. Artificially flavored banana candy also comes to mind, the bright yellow ones shaped like tiny versions of the fruit itself. It’s difficult to suss out which notes come first, or in greater concentration; the nearly saccharine fruit candy notes swirl around some familiar dessert-forward Old Forester elements, which generally seem to walk a nice tightrope between caramel and oak.
For complexity, this nose checks a quick box. Notably, though, that depth dies down a little after some additional time in the glass, with certain scents becoming more subdued instead of pronounced. Dark molasses and oak rise to the top, the additional barrel aging and rum influence standing above all else.
A tiny thread of furniture polish also sticks around after other notes die back, and I’m wondering if finishing an older bourbon could have prevented some of that acetone character from showing its stripes. It’s relatively subtle and fleeting here, but I sensed it nonetheless.
The lingering result is a pleasant — but imperfect — interplay of tannic and tangy, with a hint of that banana candy sticking around for good measure.
Taste
Rum-finished bourbons are often fascinating to try because it’s difficult to predict the dominant spirit on the palate. In this Old Forester expression, rum kicks in first, heavy on fructose and grenadine in a way I’ve never tasted from the brand. The sweetness gets more complex on the next sip: green apple, persimmon, and prickly pear lead an uncommon tart-yet-sweet blend of fruit flavors.
Artificial fruit flavor folds in by the midpalate, this time akin to a favorite crunchy, technicolor, berry-shaped breakfast cereal. Only then does that hallmark Old Forester bananas foster show itself, a welcome hit of caramelized sugar among more man made elements. Oak takes a nice handoff here as well, crafting another component of dark molasses and leather that sticks around through to the finish.
The palate starts heavy on rum, shifts slightly to rum-finished Old Forester, and then ends on a nearly even split between the two spirits. As with the nose, I wonder if finishing an older version of their bourbon distillate would have led to a bit more balance. But if you want to explore a heavy rum character on bourbon — after all, we’re doing this for research — this is certainly a bottle to seek out.
Finish
Beyond the very first, surprisingly complex sniff, the finish was my favorite part of this latest The 117 Series offering. It’s here I found harmony between rum and bourbon, with (rightly, in my opinion) a slight edge to the latter. Cooked bananas and oak tannins linger with a gentle undertone of sweet, funky tropical fruit and molasses. It’s perhaps five proof points too low for a finish that goes on and on and on — but there’s a long enough half life to appreciate a final balance of flavor that punches above what the palate offered.
Old Forester The 117 Series Rum Finish Rating
85/100
Recap
Old Forester The 117 Series Rum Finish shows distinct promise in combining the brand’s flavor profile with a rum finish. That’s especially true at the beginning of the nose and on the finish. I can’t help but feel the bourbon that went into the rum casks was simply younger than optimal, which led to a less-than-consistent experience at a few junctures. That said, if you’re a fan of Old Forester and want to try a completely new take on its profile, this is a potentially palate-expanding pour worth trying.
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