The list of accolades achieved by Buffalo Trace Distillery is nearly as extensive as its illustrious history, which dates to the 1770s. Located in Kentucky’s capital city, Frankfort, and named for its location along an old American bison migratory route, the distillery has won over 100 awards from various magazines, beverage industry organizations and domestic and international competitions. Not least of which includes becoming the first American distillery to win Whisky Advocate’s esteemed international award “Distillery of the Year” in 2000, only one year after rechristening the distillery name to Buffalo Trace. Notably, the distillery has garnered international recognition from Whisky Magazine for “Visitor Attraction of the Year,” “Brand Innovator of the Year” and “Distiller of the Year.”
Named a National Historic Landmark in 2013, Buffalo Trace produces many famous brands named for important contributors to the distillery’s history. Brothers Hanco*ck and Willis Lee began distilling at the site in the mid-1770s, but there was no permanent infrastructure for a distillery until Harrison Blanton constructed one in the early 1810s. Hanco*ck’s President Reserve is now a single-barrel product and Blanton has a whole line of whiskeys bearing the namesake – although technically the famed whiskey is named after his grandson, Albert Bacon Blanton, who would begin working as an office clerk at age 16 in 1897, and by 1921 would become president of the distillery.
Two former distillery owners also have prestigious modern-day brands bearing their namesakes, the “Father of the Modern Bourbon Industry,” Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor, Jr., and the person Taylor would later become business partners with, George T. Stagg. Colonel Taylor purchased the property in 1869, and in 1870 built a new distillery, naming the business O.F.C. Distillery in reference to the belief that the finest whiskey is produced in old-fashioned wood-fired copper stills. Taylor would sell the distillery at the end of the decade to Stagg, although Taylor remained at the distillery to oversee operations. Stagg & Taylor formed E.H. Taylor, Jr. & Co. with Stagg as the President.
E.H. Taylor (as the line of whiskeys named after him is known) was integral in legitimizing the bourbon industry and helped usher the first ever consumer protection law through Congress, the “Bottled-in-Bond Act” of 1897, which codified standards for barrel-aged spirits. Stagg has two releases named after him, one of which belongs to the celebrated Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, George T. Stagg Kentucky Straight Bourbon, and the other being a limited cask strength release, Stagg, Jr. Kentucky Straight Bourbon. The distillery would be renamed as George T. Stagg Distillery in 1904, 10 years after his death.
Colonel Taylor’s influence is still felt today, as several of the storied warehouses he built in the 1880s are still aging whiskey. He was also technologically ahead of his time, installing the world’s first distillery warehouse steam-heating system in 1886, a process the distillery still uses. The company’s hiring of Albert B. Blanton under Taylor’s watch would prove to be one of the most invaluable decisions in whiskey history, as Blanton ended up directing the distillery to survive and even thrive during World War I, obtaining one of the coveted “medicinal licenses” during Prohibition and the Great Depression – not to mention navigating a devastating flood, World War II, an ownership transition when Schenley Distillers Corp. purchased the distillery in 1929 and numerous other challenges throughout the early 20th century.
The last of the famous namesake properties is Elmer T. Lee, named after the mind behind the creation of the Blanton’s brand. Elmer joined the company in 1949 and would eventually hold the dual title of plant manager and master distiller. He, too, has a single-barrel bourbon named after him, as well as a number of limited offerings that are highly collectible and coveted. Shortly after Lee’s retirement, but with him still acting as ambassador and master distiller emeritus, the distillery once again became a family-owned business after purchase by the Sazerac Company in 1992.
Finally, accompanying renovations in 1999, the distillery was renamed Buffalo Trace and launched its namesake flagship brand that same year. Three years later, in 2002, Buffalo Trace would enter a joint partnership and take over distillation of the Van Winkle line of whiskeys. Elmer T. Lee was inducted into the Bourbon Hall of Fame in 2001.
