Old Forester 1924, Heaven's Door, Cedar Ridge & Wheel Horse [New Releases]

As is usual at the start of a new year, the whisky releases are off to a quiet pace. Old Forester has returned with its 1924 label, following up on last January’s debut. Heaven’s Door is back with a sixth volume in its Bootleg Series, and the first Bootleg release since 2023. Originally founded in Nashville, Heaven’s Door put down stakes in the Kentucky down of Pleasureville in late 2023, with a distillery and plans for opening a visitor center the public in the summer of 2024, but summer passed with no update. Kentucky bourbon label Wheel Horse has been an infrequent but highly successful non-distiller producer over the years, but it's back now with a new 5 year old. And on the American single malt front, Iowa-based Cedar Ridge has a new and quite complex wine cask-finished release.

Old Forester 1924 Bourbon

ABV: 50%
SRP: $120
Availability: Limited

This January, Old Forester is bringing back its 1924 expression, which made its inaugural debut last year. The 10 year old whiskey has a mashbill of 79% corn, 11% rye, and 10% malted barley—a contrast to the standard Old Forester bourbon recipe of 72% corn, 18% rye, and 10% malted barley. The release, out now, pays homage to a time during Prohibition (1924, to be exact) when Old Forester—one of just six distilleries allowed to bottle its existing whiskey stocks as medicine—bought barrels of whiskey, all with different mashbills, from shuttered producers and bottled it as Old Forester. The release is one of five labels in Old Forester’s Whiskey Row Series, which celebrates the distillery’s roots.

Heaven’s Door Bootleg Series Volume VI Bourbon

ABV: 60.58%
SRP: $500
Availability: Limited

Bob Dylan-backed Heaven’s Door has released the sixth edition of its collectible Bootleg Series. The new straight bourbon is a blend of 12, 13, and 14 year old wheated bourbons, with the final blend finished in lightly toasted French Limousin "cigar" barrels. The barrels are so named for their shape—tall and elongated, like a cigar—which allows for more interaction between the whiskey and wood, according to master blender Alex Moore, who experimented with more than a dozen different barrel types before landing on these.

Every Heaven’s Door Bootleg bottle features artwork by Dylan, and this release is no different, highlighting his painting “Favela Villa Candido,” which was part of his 2015 collection, “The Brazil Series.” (The whiskey nods to Brazil through its maturation, given that Limousin cigar barrels are traditionally used for aging Brazilian spirits.) Less than 5,000 bottles of Bootleg VI are available nationwide.

Cedar Ridge The QuintEssential: Wine Club, First Meeting American Single Malt

ABV: 59.05%
SRP: $100
Availability: Limited

Swisher, Iowa-based Cedar Ridge Distillery has rolled out its latest limited edition QuintEssential American single malt. This one taps into Cedar Ridge’s wine side, showcasing several wine cask finishes. The whiskey comprises two components that were blended together. The first is a bourbon barrel-matured single malt finished in a combination of amontillado, moscatel, and tokaji casks. The second one is a peated single malt that was finished in pinot noir barrels.

This is the fourth release in the QuintEssential Special Releases series, with each entry featuring an interesting array of finishing casks or an innovative blending technique. The series kicked off in 2023 with two expressions named Pete & Sherri—a marriage of sherry cask-finished single malt with a bourbon barrel-aged peated single malt—and Portside, which featured finishes in amontillado, ruby port, and virgin French oak barrels. The third release, Untitled Cigar Malt Project, was finished in madeira-inspired dessert wine, ruby port, virgin French and American oak, and sherry casks.

Wheel Horse 5 year old Double Oak Bourbon

ABV: 50.5%
SRP: $35
Availability: Limited

Wheel Horse has unveiled a new double-barreled bourbon, its oldest bourbon yet. It was first aged for 4 and a half years in No.-4 heavily charred oak barrels before being transferred into No.-1 light charred oak barrels for 6 months. Like many of Wheel Horse’s other whiskeys, this one was bottled at 101 proof.

Founded in 2019, Wheel Horse is a brand owned by Boston-based Latitude Beverage Co. It has been sourcing its whiskey from Green River Distilling Co. in Owensboro, Kentucky. As far as non-distilling producers go, Wheel Horse is a fairly quiet one—only having released a handful of expressions—but it has taken home high marks from our tasting panel. Its thrice-finished Cigar Blend bourbon recently scored 91 points. Prior to that, it stunned our tasters with a 2–4 year old bourbon that netted a 94-point rating and landed a spot on our Top 20 Whiskies of 2021.

The Green River facility is a historic distillery at the western end of Kentucky, about 100 miles west of Louisville, and its famous brand names once included Ezra Brooks, Old Medley, and Mellow Corn. Like much of the bourbon business, it went through a prolonged slump over the latter part of the 20^th century, and by the early 2000s it was a shuttered shell of its former self. In 2014 it was acquired by Terresentia Corporation, which restored the place and renamed it O.Z. Tyler Distillery. In 2022 it was sold to current owner Bardstown Bourbon Co., and its name reverted to the original Green River Distilling Co.