Left to right: Kentucky Derby Festival board chairman Ken Selvaggi, Evan Williams Bourbon Experience artisanal distiller Jodie Filiatreau, and Kentucky Bourbon Festival president and CEO Matt Gibson gather to commemorate the release of the 2023 Evan Williams Single Barrel Derby bottling.
Evan Williams Offering Special Edition Single Barrel For Derby Festival 2023
February 24, 2023 –––––– David Fleming
Evan Williams Bourbon Experience has unveiled a special edition bottle of its single barrel expression as part of its efforts to support the Kentucky Derby Festival, the Louisville non-profit organization focused on entertainment, cultural events, and economic development.
This limited edition whiskey is a 2015 single barrel expression, bottled at 119 proof and priced at $80. Each bottle’s label displays the date the whiskey was put in the barrel, its barrel number, and bottling date. A total of 800 limited-edition bottles of this offering are being sold at the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience on Louisville’s Whiskey Row and at select Louisville retailers starting today.
The Kentucky Derby Festival was founded in 1956, and offers more than 70 special events leading up to Derby Day on May 5th. This year’s festival starts March 15 and lasts right up to race day. Evan Williams has been a Festival sponsor for the past seven years.
The single barrel’s front label displays the Kentucky Derby Festival logo and includes a 2023 official Pegasus Pin in an envelope attached to each bottle. There is also a gold Pegasus Pin embedded into the wax seal on the bottle neck. Pegasus Pins are sold to raise money and awareness for the Kentucky Derby Festival events, and some 250,000 pins are made each year. Pin owners are also eligible for a variety of raffle prizes. The pins were first sold in 1973, and the older ones have become collector’s items.
In June of last year, Evans Williams announced that its single barrel expression would become a Kentucky-only release.
