Though he’d never acknowledge it, Larry Rice helped put Louisville’s bourbon scene on the map with the Silver Dollar, the acclaimed whiskey bar and restaurant he opened in 2011. The Dollar, as fans lovingly called it, was as well known for its welcome to aspiring bourbon drinkers as it was for pouring some of the most expertly selected—and just flat delicious—American whiskeys available. The bar never recovered post-pandemic, though, and closed last year.
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Along with opening other ventures along the way—including what many Louisvillians would tell you may be the city’s best neighborhood bar, the Pearl of Germantown—Rice quietly built a following who’d line up to buy his single-barrel picks. But he never took the step of putting his name on a brand…until now.
I joined Rice in late February at the first bottling of Old Treasure, his premium line of barrel selections, to learn more about the industry veteran’s new venture, what turned him off about the bourbon boom, and why now is the right time to get his hands on special barrels again. The eleven-year, 139-proof bourbon in the first barrel from his initial lot of four filled just eighty-eight bottles (barely—bottlers tipped the machine to get every last drop) with a beautiful, deep-mahogany-hued bourbon from a high-corn, no-wheat mash bill…