Obviously, that mid-October date was missed.
I have since learned that when they told us that in September, they were stalling. The bottle supplier went out of business. The new bottle was having trouble on the bottling line. They only just got it all worked out. It's being bottled now. Call it Old Forester Belated-Birthday Bourbon. The 2008 edition will be in stores likely mid-January 2009. The 2009 will be expected, on schedule, on September 2, 2009.
More here.I know this audience will want to know how this delay of several months has affected the whiskey itself. Not to worry. The particular batch of Old Forester selected for the 2008 release was actually chosen about a year ago (I helped). When they couldn't bottle it at the scheduled time, they dumped all the barrels anyway and tanked the whiskey in stainless steel, so it will be exactly the whiskey it was supposed to be.