Remember: It’s National Bourbon Appreciation Month, so do your part to appreciate.

From a press release:

George Garvin Brown, founder of Brown-Forman and creator of America’s first bottled bourbon has been honored with a three-story mural on Whiskey Row in downtown Louisville, Ky. Louisville is home to Old Forester, the only bourbon still in existence sold before, during and after Prohibition. It is also the home place of George Garvin Brown who made major contributions to the bourbon industry beginning more than 140 years ago paving the way for bourbons to come …

The mural, which depicts a young George Garvin Brown, is situated on Whiskey Row a block that once served as home to Kentucky’s famed bourbon industry. Old Forester was first bottled on Whiskey Row and is the only bourbon brand still distilled, matured and bottled in Louisville – it truly is Louisville’s bourbon.

“As the founder of Old Forester and a true bourbon pioneer, George Garvin Brown will remain an icon of the city of Louisville for years to come through this mural,” said Chris Morris, Master Distiller for Old Forester and Spirits Historian.

George Garvin Brown was born in September of 1846 in Munfordville, Kentucky, and moved to Louisville during the Civil War to get an education and remained in Louisville to enter the business world. There he recognized the need for a bourbon of consistent high quality and began putting Old Forester in glass bottles, so in 1870 Old Forester became America’s first bottled bourbon. Brown, a pharmaceutical salesman, was so sure of the quality of Old Forester that he put his hand-written guarantee on each bottle – a practice continued today.

Old Forester is the only bourbon in existence today that has been sold continuously for over a century, including between the Prohibition years of 1920 and 1933 when it received one of only ten government permits to produce bourbon for medicinal purposes when alcohol sales were otherwise illegal in the United States.  No other bourbon sold in the U.S. today can make that claim.

For more information on Old Forester, visit the Old Forester website at www.oldforester.com or visit us on Facebook atwww.facebook.com/oldforester.