Buffalo Trace Distillery stands on the Kentucky River at Leestown, which Hancock and Willis Lee founded in 1775 north of the Frankfort settlement.1,2,3 It was earlier called the O.F.C. Distillery and then the George T. Stagg Distillery.1,2,4 The Sazerac Company bought it in 1992 and renamed it Buffalo Trace Distillery in 1999.1,4,5 It is first and foremost a bourbon distillery, and it uses limestone water.2
Definitely prefer the 15 over the 20. This one has a lot of bite, even at nearly 10% lower abv.
honey
toffee
spicy
Name
Buffalo Trace Distillery, 1775–1870
O.F.C. Distillery, 1870–1904
George T. Stagg Distillery, 1904–1999
Buffalo Trace Distillery, 1999–today
1775185019001950Today
Early days on the river
In 1811 a three-story stone warehouse went up by the river to store goods, including whiskey bound for New Orleans.1 Harrison Blanton is said to have distilled on the site, and Wikipedia dates his distillery to 1812.1,3 In 1858 Daniel Swigert built a small but up-to-date distillery there, the first documented one on the grounds.1,6
The O.F.C. years
Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor, Jr. bought the distillery in 1870.1,3,6 He named it O.F.C., after the belief that the finest whiskey came from old-fashioned wood-fired copper stills.1,2,4 In 1872 he spent over $70,000 building a new distillery on the site.1 George T. Stagg bought it in 1878, along with the livestock farm next door, and Taylor kept overseeing operations.1,4,5
Sources disagree: when it became O.F.C. Distillery. This page uses 1870.
1870: Buffalo Trace Distillery, Oxford University Press1,2,6
Warehouses A and B went up in 1881, and lightning burned the distillery in 1882.1,2,7 It was rebuilt at once, grander, with a mashing and fermenting wing in 1883, and Warehouse C completed Taylor's “Model Distillery Plant of the World” in 1885.1,2,7
The Stagg name
In 1886 Stagg installed steam heating in the warehouses, and the distillery says it was the first to use steam heat.1,3,5 Albert B. Blanton, made superintendent of the still house, warehouse and bottling in 1900, renamed it the George T. Stagg Distillery in 1904.1,2,4 Blanton had joined as a 16-year-old office boy in 1897, and he became president in 1921.1,4,8
Sources disagree: when it became George T. Stagg Distillery. This page uses 1904.
Next: The Stagg name, Prohibition, Schenley rebuilds the plant, Elmer T. Lee and Age International, Sazerac and the Buffalo Trace name, Doubling production
During Prohibition, from 1920 to 1933, it was one of very few distilleries allowed to bottle medicinal whiskey.1,4,5 From 1930 to 1933 it was one of even fewer allowed to make new whiskey.1,4,5
Schenley rebuilds the plant
1933–1937
Schenley Distillers Corporation bought the distillery in 1929.1,4,6 From 1933 Schenley expanded it, with Warehouse H, the only metal-clad warehouse, in 1935 and a new distillery complex built from 1935 to 1937.1,2 New still houses with the latest distilling technology were built in 1936.1 In 1937 a great flood covered the distillery, cresting 17 feet above the power plant.1
Elmer T. Lee and Age International
Elmer T. Lee joined as a maintenance engineer in 1949 and later became plant manager and master distiller.1,9 In 1983 Ferdie Falk and Bob Baranaskas, who had led Fleischmann's, bought the distillery and called their company Age International.3,10 Lee retired in 1985, and Gary Gayheart became master distiller.3,9
Sazerac and the Buffalo Trace name
The Sazerac Company bought the distillery in 1992, returning it to family ownership.1,4,5 The same year Takara Shuzo bought Age International, whose Blanton's and Ancient Age bourbons are still made at the distillery.3,10 After renovations ended in 1999, Sazerac named it after the paths, or traces, that migrating buffalo carved.1,2,4 In June 2002 an agreement with the Van Winkle family set up the making of their bourbons at the distillery.3,11 Gayheart retired in 2005 after 33 years, and Harlen Wheatley became master distiller.1,3 In 2007 the E.H. Taylor, Jr. Micro Still, a combined pot still and column still, began making small experimental batches.1 On 11 March 2013 it was named a National Historic Landmark, a complex with a unique collection of historic buildings.1,2,4
Doubling production
In January 2021 eight new fermenters of 93,000 gallons each brought the total to 24, slightly larger than the 12 older ones used since 1933.12 In 2022 a second still house, a 1:1 copy of the 1936 still house, came online, and Sazerac said it would double production.1,13,14 Its still is a 40-foot duplicate of the existing one, matched, master distiller Harlen Wheatley said, so the whiskey stays consistent.1,13,14 In April 2025 the Kentucky River flooded most of the distillery grounds, and bourbon production stopped for about a month.1,3,11 Cleanup and repairs cost more than $30 million, just after a decade-long $1.2 billion expansion was completed.1,3,11
Good rating, 80–84 range
