Is 2024 Old Forester Birthday Bourbon a Flop?

[@jakedobbs9962]

Got a bottle from my local kroger store today for $204 out the door. Just happen to walk in when they got a case hand delivered from a rep. 🤯… never seen one for retail, never owned one… I’m hyped

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Hopefully it’s an enjoyable pour for you!

[@Aged_in_Oak]

I so appreciate you two. You have helped me with my FOMO so much! For the most part, I really enjoy OF, but I've heard that, historically, the Birthday Bourbon isn't well received. So glad I can remove that from my lists of wants! My current FOMO problem is Raconteur Rye.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

It’s not often we promote FOMO-only when the bottle is really worth it-and for us Raconteur definitely does “that special whiskey thing” (although we’re sure it’s still not for some people). Always happy to do blinds to help to put hype into perspective!

[@brettheiner7125]

Polishing off a JD12 as I write this… the Calumet is a distant 2nd even to batch 02 in my book… keep up the good work you two!

[@89sooner]

Loved Erin’s take on the Calumet…and she’s rubbing off on you with book and library (in this case antique store) notes….love it!

[@MildTurkey77]

Great video! This really helps any fomo for that release and all Birthday Bourbon releases.

[@MagicTalkingTaco]

Love your honesty and for the fabulous blind flight.

[@AndrewB_88]

Love the multi bottle blind! Do more!

[@stuffandwhiskey]

They’re tough to fit in with our recording schedule but we do them as time allows, and have some fun ones coming up over the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

[@mistermom310]

That was fun. Now I'm going to look for a Calumet 16.

[@geralddvorak6570]

I have the 2019 Bday Bourbon and it is delicious and wins blinds for me. Only other one I tried was 2023 and it was good but not worth the price. Going to OF this weekend and hoping to find something at the gift shop. Cheers!

[@stuffandwhiskey]

We’ve not tried the 2019, only 2020-2024, but have heard 2019 is the best release of the line in quite some time.

[@seangallagher7150]

Agreed, I've tasted 2019 Bday Bourbon and I thought the flavor was great.

[@Josh_P_1992]

Would love to see yall do a current list of your favorite: 1. Cheap bottle under $30 2. Your daily sipper 3. Special occasion 4. Expensive bottle $100+ 5. Craft whiskey

[@stuffandwhiskey]

We kinda already did a similar video. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bqCogputpbyKfJI Happy to do this one too though as the inclusion of craft would add a wrinkle we hadn't previously included, and the price-focused list would be enlightening to folks I think.

[@bumpandrun]

I have a JD 12 first release I was able to get for $140 right after it releasesd. It's magic!

[@BenDurham-c8n]

I got a 24 BB at just over SRP. I think it’s great. It’s definitely imperfect and off profile for a legacy LE, but I really enjoy it.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

That’s what matters! We all have different palates and highlighting that through videos like this as well as comments like this is always a helpful thing for folks. Cheers!

[@bigreb62]

JD 12 is great just wish I could buy several bottles

[@WhiskyForBeginners]

Early on I had a sample of Old Forester Statesman, and it so underwhelmed me that I didn't try anything else from OF for a year. Then I tried the OF 100, which is the only one I can regularly afford, and it's now on my list of standards. I wouldn't turn down a chance to taste the Birthday Bourbon, but I've never seen a review yet which made me think it's as good as the 100. We'll see how this goes. 🙂 3:28 For *me* the classic Erinism is "stinky feet." 😂 6:42 Erin nailed the Birthday Bourbon! 👏🎊🎉🥳 9:29 When the JD 12 came up on the screen I understood the notes y'all were getting. I've had a sample of the 10 (not the 12), and I'm on my third bottle (two pints and now a fifth) of the SBBP, and both give me an abundance of those dark smoky notes. 13:04 Erin, you need to understand that pecan pie stands with ambrosia and chantilly cake as the three desserts the angels eat. 🙂 Yes, the angels are all from south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

[@briancopple4238]

Great video, I love the calumet 16. Hope I find one of these discounted bottles you speak of!!

[@andrewbutler7681]

I'm even more intrigued to see what you make of my blind flight now...

[@melindahowe7054]

Love your videos. My husband and I are trying to figure out what Erin does for a living. We have our predictions.....

[@stuffandwhiskey]

We'd love to hear the predictions before you read the answer below... ... ... ... Erin works in content marketing as a writer. She's also worked in PR and investor relations, but writing is her thing. She's currently laid off after the company she worked for got acquired and they laid off a bunch of people. She's working on starting her own content and copywriting company while searching for new employment.

[@molemanftw]

Love me some JD12. Gonna go buy a Calumet 16 now. Thanks

[@Pinquotriot]

Had 2023 and 2024 in two separate NBIM tours - 2023 was really good but ended up a distant second/third to PC to our group, and 2024 BB was considered bland and worse than 1924 for me and my friends. I traded for a 2023BB because I’m a tater and it was noticeably better than 2024 but only because I can share the experience of a Bb with friends

[@RicCrouch]

If Erin doesn’t like pecan pie, I now have to go back and doubt any recommendation she has ever made….

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Josh here. That’s more than fair if you ask me. 😂 She hates really sweet things and hates nuts in her desserts as well so the math checks out.

[@molemanftw]

It's not possible to not love pecan pie.....

[@numanuma20]

It’s not American to not like pecan pie. 😂

[@James-xg5rh]

I’m with her. I’d rather have a hundred other pies before pecan pie.

[@ChadWinters]

Erin: “I’m on board for the house sized muffin”

[@drgallup]

Only had Birthday Bourbon once and it was a sample bottle that may not have been stored properly but it was not good. Glad I didn't spend any money for it. I got my JD12 for $87. I love not overpaying for whiskey.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Probably was stored normally based on our OFBB experiences. 😂 Great score on the JD12!

[@deankruse4491]

Cheapest bottle of Jack 12 that I have seen is $275 for batch two.

[@brettheiner7125]

For the first time in several years, I really liked the 2024 Birthday. Absolutely love JD12 - trading for two more this week!

[@danielsalyers1427]

We got to taste the 2024 Birthday Bourbon at Kentucky Bourbon Festival….all 4 people in our group were not impressed. Wasn’t even in the top 20 of the different things we tasted at the festival.

[@thurstonhowell-3]

Just got 2024 BB for my birthday , was expecting it to suck due to this blind. While it doesn’t blow my socks off - I think it takes like a watered down OF Single Barrel BP. 7.75 /10

[@stuffandwhiskey]

It didn’t hit our palates right but definitely glad you enjoy it!

[@leonardskinerd7758]

I have a 2019 Birthday Bourbon that I'm opening to celebrate the birth of my daughter in a couple weeks!

[@stuffandwhiskey]

That’s what special bottles are for! We’ve not tried the 2019, only 2020-2024, but have heard 2019 is the best release of the line in quite some time.

[@CarmenLaRue-vb8ru]

Love the show youz guyz are great but I have the hardest time finding the notes that you get because I rarely eat sweets or hardly ever eat candy All my notes are in baking spices savory notes grasses and hay and wet straw dried fruits and fresh fruits etc… 😂😂😂

[@stuffandwhiskey]

That's a great point! Would be interesting to hear how some of the sweet notes that are so prevalent in bourbons read to you if you don't eat sweets much (caramel, fruit candy which is distinct from real fruit, etc).

[@donaldalderman2424]

So would Birthday Bourbon be worth it to buy at regular MSRP? I won the raffle to buy at the distillery and wondering if its even worth it after seeing some reviews.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Being totally honest, having now tasted it, if I won one at MSRP I’d buy it and immediately trade it for a George T Stagg personally.

[@donaldalderman2424]

@stuffandwhiskey That's definitely fair. Guess at worst it would be a good trading piece to have.

[@ealanis10]

bought for srp and immediately traded for RR15 and CYPB lol

[@altmandillon1]

I enjoyed this blind. Cheers y'all 🎉

[@kamahhl]

I'd go: JD12, WT12, Calumet16. Haven't tried the new OFBB

[@stuffandwhiskey]

It was REALLY close between WT101/12 and Calumet 16! Razor thin honestly and could easily swap on a different day.

[@TacoTruck17]

Mid Winters night Dram dropped this week in Utah. 130.00 dollars

[@lifebreath77]

Oh great, I bought a bottle of the Birthday Bourbon yesterday. 😭 Not secondary but at a premium. The JD 12 is fantastic stuff! Not a huge fane of OF, but I have a store pick barrel proof single barrel that rocks, and it was $84.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Let us know what you think about it!

[@BourbonandBeards]

The social sipper but has way better tasting notes then everyone I know. Great video! I have heard this so many time already and it has only been out for a couple weeks

[@Kenna0009]

I had a great OF bday but it was a 2018, heard the more recent ones miss the mark

[@kyliejohn3813]

I see value in both, but I think the double blind is more telling. 🥃

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Same. Not really an option with a format like this to get it out in a timely fashion without someone else preparing us for it, but we're always fans of double blinds over everything else. Single blinds are tough because your mind always wants to try to guess what's what. We try to avoid that as much as possible and have been wrong enough to know not to let that influence our rankings in any way, but it was a hard lesson to learn.

[@FrontStraw907]

Erin at 25:57 “I feel like the special Wild Turkeys have never wowed me.” *Josh takes sip “Wow!” 😂

[@stuffandwhiskey]

😂😂

[@Bergkampgunner]

2018 birthday bourbon is still my favorite ever bourbon and I’ve tried a lot of things. In July I had both 21 and 23 and they were good but didn’t hit me as special. That being said, I’ll drive from Raleigh to wherever you wanna meet and trade you a JD12 B2 and JD10 B3 for the rest of that bottle…just say the word lol

[@jeffruebens8355]

I am much more about the budget bangers, buying a whole bottle and especially averaging how I feel the next morning after 2 shots, at 65 years old. If it tastes great but does a whammy on my liver it is a one and done. I tried a whole bottle of Old Forester 100 and nothing special, not bad but not a rebuy. I am trying the Coopers Craft 100 next, only easily available here at over retail at $35 a bottle, so in a way I am hoping it is worse than the $31 Bernheim Original Wheat Whiskey that is a rebuy for me, at the top of my tiny budget.

[@877-MASH-NOW]

WHISKEY CHEERS 😎

[@sugarkitty4777]

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." Totally not surprised by the results.

[@heatherharrison264]

Birthday Bourbon seems to get mixed reviews, and there is a strong consensus that it has declined in recent years. I've never tried it, but I'm not seeking it out. It doesn't turn up often, and when it does, it is far too expensive. If a bar gets it, I might give it a try out of curiosity if the price isn't outrageous. The Whiskey Row series is mostly a very good value (only the 1924 is priced too high for what it offers), and all five are high quality products. When I'm in the mood for bourbon in general, I think I could find something within that series that would satisfy me, unless I'm in the mood for crafty stuff or Texas funk. The way that you described some of these in which the nose doesn't match the palate, it sounded like they might be closed. Have you tried adding a few drops of cold water after taking a few sips to see how it changes? With single malts, this is common practice. I have tried this with bourbon, and I find that it doesn't usually make as big a difference as it does with single malts. Most bourbon is made in column stills, and it tends to be heavily filtered, so there might not be as many oils for the water to bring out of solution. (It does make a difference with high strength, crafty pot still bourbon.) Still, I wonder if a little water might open things up a little for some of these. The Birthday Bourbon sounds like it might have some underlying complexity that could be affected by the addition of water or ice. If I find it at a bar, I'll try adding a little water. I've seen older Calumets at a discount from time to time. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I keep hearing good things. Maybe I should pick one up, though I should probably wait until I kill off a bottle because my whisky shelf is full. Bourbon older than 12 years can be a little strange, but sometimes it is strange in interesting ways. Knob Creek 18 is the only one I currently have. It is weird, woody, fascinating stuff, but it is definitely a mood pour.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

We've found the same thing with adding water to bourbon vs single malts, so much so that we stopped adding water to bourbons because we grew tired of "ruining" glasses of whiskey because they got worse with water. There are some that do hold up, but most we've tried are barrel proof, and they don't get appreciably better with water--just different. ECBP is a bottle that we will sometimes add a LOT of water to in order to bring proof down to near the 94 proof that the shelf small batch is bottled at, while retaining the age of ECBP.

[@tommysimpsonandtheloadeddice]

How does someone not like Pecan Pie? lol

[@stuffandwhiskey]

It’s a valid question!

[@ianreynolds494]

I have not had a lot of high dollar, top tier bourbon, but I do sometimes wonder if the biggest difference in the exclusive releases is the nose far more than the taste. A lot of mid tier whiskey doesn't smell like much other than whiskey, but tastes really good. The WT 12 is actually a good example, internationally it is closer to $50-60 and at that price it is killer. Do you think the nose gets too much attention in the rare air of "special" bottles? Cheers and thanks.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

That's actually a great point on the difference between "special" whiskey and the stuff on the shelf. The aroma is part of it for sure, but in our experience over the course of the channel and all the whiskey we've tried, the biggest differentiator between shelf bottles and the special stuff is the concentration of flavor. When we talk about "that special whiskey thing" it's always how dense and concentrated the flavor is on the palate. As much as we love to find great shelf bottles that rival allocated bottles, the truly special bottles do something different when it comes to how they hit the palate.

[@d1ddy852]

If you can find Calumet 16 for around $100 bucks, it would be foolish not to grab one. I drank one bottle and had to grab another.

[@WhiskeyMathanDearg]

Hey Erin! Where'd ya get that great sweater? 😁And I agree with her distaste for pecan pie...it has to be a southern thang (Joshua). AGAIN another example of blinds rooting out whiskeys that don't live up to their marketing. Good jobs kids (you're kids to me, as today I click over in to my 54th year on the planet).

[@sweetsinnndy5201]

Love the video, have not tried any of the ones you tasted. Was listening to Aerosmith talk about how they came up with Dude looks like a lady. The guy they thought was a hot chick is a famous rocker from the 80's. Look up the story, pretty funny.

[@Ona1000]

Syrupy brown sugar makes sense - Molasses

[@MaryS-go8dl]

Great blind!

[@jimgraham6407]

OF Birthday is always overrated in my opinion. I've had 8 different years and was always disappointed. This does not surprise me at all.

[@cincybearcats1]

Agreed. It’s a 6/10 bourbon and that’s insane to say for how sought after it is

[@dillonmartin2891]

Every other KZbinr this year so far has had a great experience with BDB .

[@stuffandwhiskey]

We’ve seen a few positives and a couple of critical reviews. Out of curiosity, how many have you seen compare it blind in a flight?

[@dillonmartin2891]

@@stuffandwhiskey solid point only a couple

[@stuffandwhiskey]

@@dillonmartin2891 it's definitely easy to be enchanted with the big bottles or have preconceived notions due to the proof. We had high hopes of this one ourselves. Unfortunately it just didn't live up.

[@justinwilliams7637]

So when Erin says, “If you are fortunate enough to own this bottle of Birthday Bourbon…,” did she really mean, “If you were dumb enough to pay secondary for this bottle of Birthday Bourbon…” I’m pretty sure that’s the accurate translation 🤦🏼‍♂️

[@donaldalderman2424]

So question, I won the raffle to buy at the distillery. Would it be worth it to buy for the normal price? Not hearing great reviews

[@stuffandwhiskey]

@justinwilliams7637 😂😂 the joy this experience is bringing into the lives of others through this video is dang near priceless!

[@justinwilliams7637]

@@donaldalderman2424 I would definitely buy it at retail. But I’m 100% basing that off of the experience that you can share with others. IMO, the whiskey in the bottle is not worth it. IMO, the experience is. 🥃

[@mikem4432]

never had one, but seems everyone has rated the taste as below par for the price. I have seen it at a local bourbon bar and barbeque, but they charge 74$ a pour. PASS

[@austinb8175]

Sometimes I feel like it’s trendy to trash top shelf whiskey…

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Maybe in some circles. We just speak to what we learn through blinds which are inherently unbiased and honest.

[@christopherryan7654]

I've heard good things before this review.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Seen any other blinds of it yet? We haven’t but I’ve been looking.

[@christopherryan7654]

SLB just reviewed it and loved it.​@@stuffandwhiskey

[@FriarPop]

Old Forester Birthday Bourbon is by far the most overrated bourbon i've ever had and im a huge OF fan. Its basically a 100 proof black label and I've had better black label store picks. That JD12 blows it out of the water.