Brown-Forman's Kentucky Boy Bourbon: A Retired Label, Revived as a Tribute
September 13, 2026
Most limited releases are built around a mash bill or a barrel selection. Kentucky Boy is built around a name Brown-Forman hadn’t used since the 1940s, and a person still working at the company today.
Reviving a Prohibition-era label
Brown-Forman acquired the Kentucky Boy label in 1923, when it bought Louisville’s Lynndale Distillery during Prohibition. Through the 1940s, it was marketed with a thoroughbred racing theme before going dormant — shelved, not discontinued, for roughly eighty years. This release is the first time Brown-Forman has put the name back on a bottle.
Built as a tribute, not a routine annual release
Kentucky Boy exists to mark Chris Morris’s 50 years at Brown-Forman — he started there in 1976 and became the fifth Master Distiller in Old Forester’s history, a role long intertwined with Woodford Reserve as well. It’s a one-time release, not a new permanent line: Woodford Reserve Master Distiller Elizabeth McCall and Old Forester Assistant Master Distiller Caleb Trigo, both mentored by Morris, created it specifically to honor him.
Brown-Forman has framed the whiskey itself as a “liquid timeline” of Morris’s career, pointing to whiskies he developed — Old Forester Birthday Bourbon, King of Kentucky, and Woodford Reserve Double Oaked — as its throughline. Brown-Forman has not published the mash bill, barrel details, or age statement for Kentucky Boy itself, so beyond that framing, what’s actually in the bottle is not public.
What it costs and where to find it
Kentucky Boy is bottled at 100 proof with an MSRP of $99.99. Brown-Forman has not disclosed the total bottle count, only that it’s limited and one-time.
It debuted September 10, 2026 at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown, with general sales opening September 11 at 10am ET through three channels: the Old Forester Distillery in Louisville, shop.oldforester.com — which currently ships only to D.C., Kentucky, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and North Dakota — and select Kentucky retailers. A release celebration with Morris himself ran at Old Forester from 6 to 8pm ET on the 11th.
A portion of net proceeds benefits Second Stride, a national program that adopts out retired Thoroughbred racehorses — a detail that fits the racing theme the original 1940s Kentucky Boy label used to carry.
Is it worth chasing?
At under $100, Kentucky Boy is priced well below what a story this specific usually commands on release — no barrel-strength premium, no double-digit age statement to pay for. That makes it more approachable than most one-time tribute releases, but also means the pitch is entirely the story and the scarcity, not a headline spec the way a cask-strength or extra-aged release would be. Given the narrow shipping footprint of the direct-to-consumer channel, most people outside those five ship-to jurisdictions will be relying on secondary retail allocation or resale — and with limited quantities and no reorder planned, waiting for a restock isn’t really an option here.