Bourbon Weekly: Four Roses' Oldest Ever, Sazerac Goes to Tennessee

Two of the largest companies in American spirits made moves this week, and neither involved a quiet barrel pick. Four Roses bottled the oldest whiskey in its history, a 21-year single barrel, as its first headline release under new owner Gallo. Sazerac walked into Tennessee whiskey for the first time with a $40 bottle aimed squarely at Jack Daniel's. Around those two, the week filled in with a wine-cask Father's Day blend, a sourced-whiskey debut from two well-known distillers, and a half-million-dollar bourbon theft in Philadelphia.

The Week in Six Bullets

• Four Roses released Anthology Chapter One: Origin, a 21-year single barrel at up to 124.9 proof, $500, its oldest bottling ever and first major release under Gallo¹
• Sazerac launched A.J. Bond, its first Tennessee whiskey, 95 proof at $39.99, made with the Lincoln County Process²
• Sweetens Cove opened presales on its 2026 First Release, a cuvée wine-cask blend at 98 proof, with bottles dropping June 13³
• Denny Potter and Jane Bowie debuted Potter Jane with Big Vat Liar, a sourced 7-year cask-strength high-rye bourbon at $49.99⁴
• Brown-Forman posted a 1% sales decline for fiscal 2026 and paused production at its Slane Irish distillery⁵
• Thieves took roughly $500,000 of Noble Oak bourbon from a North Philadelphia warehouse in a daylight cargo theft⁶

Four Roses Reaches Back 21 Years

Anthology Chapter One: Origin went public June 2, and the headline number is the age: 21 years, older than anything Four Roses has ever released¹. It is a single barrel of the OBSF recipe, one of the distillery's ten, bottled at up to 124.9 proof for $500. Roughly 1,200 bottles exist. The brand's notes run apricot and spiced mint on the nose, ripe cherry, cacao, and honey on the palate, then antique oak on a long finish. It reaches the Lawrenceburg Visitor Center on July 10 and the Whiskey Row event the next day.

The timing matters as much as the liquid. This is the first marquee release since Gallo completed its purchase of Four Roses from Japan's Kirin in April for up to $775 million, putting the brand under American ownership for the first time in 83 years⁷. Anthology is built as a decade-long annual series that will eventually walk through all ten Four Roses recipes. A 21-year, $500 single barrel is a clear opening statement about where the new owner wants the brand to sit.

Sazerac Enters Tennessee

The company behind Buffalo Trace has never made Tennessee whiskey. That changed this week with A.J. Bond, a 95-proof bottle releasing across Tennessee in June at $39.99². It runs through the Lincoln County Process, filtered through sugar maple charcoal before barreling, which is the legal line that separates Tennessee whiskey from bourbon. Sazerac distills it on both pot and column stills, ages the two streams separately, then bonds them together before bottling.

The name honors master distiller Allisa Henley and the late John Lunn, who worked together for more than a decade. At $40, A.J. Bond lands in the same aisle as standard Jack Daniel's and Gentleman Jack, which is the point. Sazerac has spent years buying and building in Kentucky; planting a flag in a category Brown-Forman has owned for over a century is a more direct challenge than anything in its bourbon lineup. Broader distribution to select states is expected later in 2026.

New Releases Worth Tracking

Sweetens Cove 2026 First Release

Sweetens Cove, the brand backed by Peyton Manning and Andy Roddick, opened presales June 2 on its 2026 First Release, with bottles dropping June 13 at its Texas tasting room and online³. It blends aged Kentucky and Tennessee bourbon, both finished in cuvée wine casks, bottled at 98 proof. Expect cherry and red berry up front, with crème brûlée and baking spice behind. The release is timed to Father's Day and the U.S. Open, and the wine-cask finish is doing the heavy lifting on the flavor. A celebrity blend is easy to dismiss; this one has a real finish behind it.

Potter Jane Big Vat Liar

Denny Potter and Jane Bowie spent years inside Heaven Hill and Maker's Mark, and both went on record swearing they would never sell sourced whiskey. Their new company, Potter Jane, debuted this week with a bottle named Big Vat Liar⁴. It is exactly what the name admits: a sourced, nearly 7-year-old cask-strength high-rye Kentucky bourbon, $49.99. Naming the bottle after the broken promise is the most honest move in sourced whiskey this year. The real test comes when their own distillate is old enough to bottle.

Koopers Father's Office Cigar Blend

Koopers Whiskey released a Father's Office Cigar Blend straight bourbon finished in two unusual woods at once: Brazilian amburana and Japanese mizunara⁸. Amburana pushes heavy cinnamon and toasted-coconut sweetness; mizunara adds sandalwood and incense. Stacking both on one bourbon is a lot of wood character competing for the same glass. This is the week's under-the-radar bottle for anyone who already likes amburana and wants to see how far it bends.

Industry Signals

The week's business news pointed the same direction it has for months: a market still working off the post-boom hangover.

Brown-Forman reported a 1% drop in net sales for fiscal 2026 and paused production at its Slane Irish whiskey distillery⁵. Whiskey House of Kentucky, a contract distillery that opened barely a year ago, laid off about 30% of its staff, 22 people⁹. Wes Henderson, of Angel's Envy founding fame, paused his planned $92.5 million True Story distillery in Versailles while facing lawsuits over roughly $1.5 million in unpaid bills¹⁰. None of these are isolated. Kentucky warehouses are holding record barrel inventory, exports are down, and the bill for years of expansion is coming due.

One thread from last week moved forward: the court-appointed receiver for Uncle Nearest filed a non-binding letter of intent to sell the brand's assets to an undisclosed African-American-owned investment firm¹¹. If the sale closes, it would resolve the receivership that followed the brand's default. Watch the next filings.

Awards Worth Noting

The American Whiskey Commission named Bhakta 1868 America250 Edition Barrel 1 its Best in Show bourbon, scoring it 19 of 20¹². The bottle blends straight bourbon with 19th-century French Armagnac, which stretches the definition of bourbon past where some drinkers will follow. At the London Spirits Competition, Root Shoot Bottled-in-Bond American Single Malt took Whisky of the Year at 97 points, a $57 grain-to-glass bottle beating spirits many times its price¹³. American single malt keeps proving it belongs in the same conversation as bourbon and rye.

The $500,000 Bourbon Heist

Between 1 and 3 p.m. on June 5, someone drove off with about 1,800 cases of Noble Oak bourbon, roughly 10,800 bottles, from a North Philadelphia warehouse⁶. The company called it a coordinated cargo theft and flagged one detail: the photo on the driver's ID did not match the person who took the pallets. The FBI and Philadelphia police are investigating, and distributors have been asked to watch for anyone reselling the lot. Cargo theft across spirits has climbed, and a clean half-million-dollar grab in daylight is a sign of how organized it has become. If a suspiciously cheap pallet of Noble Oak surfaces near you, that is why.

What to Watch

• San Francisco World Spirits Competition results go live June 9. Bourbon and rye medals are usually the most-cited shelf-talkers of the year.
• Sweetens Cove 2026 First Release drops June 13 online and in Texas.
• National Bourbon Week runs June 14 to 21 in Bardstown, with ten partner distilleries hosting pours and events.
• Four Roses Anthology reaches the Visitor Center July 10. If you want one of the 1,200 bottles, plan the trip now.

Keep Reading

Footnotes

1. Breaking Bourbon, "Four Roses Debuts Anthology Series With Oldest Release in Brand History," June 2, 2026 ↩ ↩²

2. Robb Report, "Sazerac Released Its First Tennessee Whiskey, A.J. Bond," June 2026 ↩ ↩²

3. Nashville Scene, "Whiskey Wednesday: Jack Daniel's, Sweetens Cove," May 6, 2026 ↩ ↩²

4. Lexington Herald-Leader, "Denny Potter and Jane Bowie Launch Potter Jane With 'Big Vat Liar,'" June 2026 ↩ ↩²

5. Brown-Forman, "Brown-Forman Reports Fiscal 2026 Results," June 4, 2026 ↩ ↩²

6. The Philadelphia Inquirer, "Nearly $500K of Bourbon Stolen From North Philadelphia Warehouse," June 6, 2026 ↩ ↩²

7. The Spirits Business, "Gallo Finalises $775m Buyout of Four Roses Bourbon," April 2026 ↩

8. The Whiskey Wash, "Koopers Whiskey Finishes Bourbon in Amburana and Mizunara," June 2026 ↩

9. Bourbon Obsessed, "Bourbon and Distillery News for June 6, 2026: Layoffs, RNDC, Brown-Forman, Litigation Updates," June 6, 2026 ↩

10. Lexington Herald-Leader, "Wes Henderson Pauses True Story Distillery Plans," June 2026 ↩

11. VinePair, "Uncle Nearest Receiver Looks to Sell Brand," June 2026 ↩

12. Forbes, "The World's Best Bourbon, According to the American Whiskey Commission," June 7, 2026 ↩

13. Food & Wine, "This American Single Malt Was Just Named Whisky of the Year," June 2026 ↩