Buffalo Trace Distillery sits on the Kentucky River in Frankfort, Kentucky, where buffalo once crossed the river. Industrial distilling on the site is documented from 1857–58, it was one of the few Kentucky distilleries to come through Prohibition intact, and it has been owned by the Sazerac Company since 1992. It makes Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, E.H. Taylor, Weller, Stagg and Sazerac Rye, produces Blanton's under contract, and has made the Van Winkle bourbons through a joint venture since 2002.
At a glance
- Where: Frankfort, Kentucky, on the Kentucky River.
- Owner: the Sazerac Company, since 1992.
- Documented distilling since: 1857–58 (older family distilling on the land is tradition, not record).
- Landmark status: National Register of Historic Places (2001) and National Historic Landmark (2013), under its older name, the George T. Stagg Distillery.
- Names over the years: O.F.C., George T. Stagg, Ancient Age, and Buffalo Trace since 1999.
- Known for: Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, Blanton's, Weller, E.H. Taylor, Stagg, Sazerac Rye and the Van Winkle bourbons.
- Visiting: free tours and tastings, with reservations recommended.
A crossing on the Kentucky River
The name is older than the bourbon. Early maps and travellers' accounts describe a buffalo crossing on the Kentucky River at or near the site, part of a migration path that settlers called a trace. In 1773 the surveyor Hancock Taylor laid out 400 acres there for Robert McAfee, one of the first land surveys in Kentucky, and in 1775 Hancock Lee and Willis Lee settled the spot that became known as Leestown, the first Anglo-American settlement in the Frankfort area.
The distillery's own history says distilling on the land goes back to those early days, and family tradition credits Harrison Blanton, grandfather of the later distillery president Albert B. Blanton, with running a still on ground the distillery later bought. The National Register nomination, the most careful record of the site, gives that still no date, so treat it as tradition. The documented story starts with a stone warehouse that Richard Taylor and a partner built on the riverbank in 1811. In 1857 Daniel Swigert bought the building, and by the end of 1858 he had turned it into a distillery, apparently the first steam-powered distillery in Kentucky.
E.H. Taylor Jr. and the O.F.C. Distillery
Edmund Haynes Taylor Jr., a grand-nephew of President Zachary Taylor, bought the plant in November 1870 (there are signs he was already distilling there in 1869). He named it the O.F.C. Distillery, usually read as "Old Fire Copper" and sometimes as "Old Fashioned Copper," built a new stillhouse in 1873 and added the Carlisle Distillery on the same grounds in 1879–80. When the plant burned in 1882 he rebuilt it the next year; that 1883 building is still on the campus.
Taylor's larger legacy reached far beyond Frankfort. He is widely credited, alongside Treasury Secretary John G. Carlisle, with pushing through the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897, the first federal guarantee of what was in a bottle of whiskey. Our story on the Bottled-in-Bond Act covers why it mattered.
George T. Stagg and Albert Blanton
Taylor's expansion left him in debt to the St. Louis firm of George T. Stagg. Stagg and his partners took control in 1878, the two men split in 1886–87, and in 1904 the complex was renamed the George T. Stagg Distillery. Warehouse C went up in 1885. The distillery is often called the first to heat its warehouses with steam, a practice dated by tradition to 1886, though insurance maps suggest the boiler house came in the 1890s.
In 1897 a teenager named Albert Bacon Blanton started in the office. He was superintendent by 1900 and president from 1921 into the 1950s, and he lived on the grounds in a house called Rock Hill from 1934 until his death in 1959. His years in charge covered the distillery's hardest stretch.
Prohibition and the Schenley years
Bourbon distilling at the Stagg distillery essentially stopped in 1917, but the warehouses kept releasing whiskey under government control, and the plant became one of the few allowed to bottle whiskey as medicine; it bottled a million pints of medicinal whiskey in 1925 alone. Distilling of medicinal whiskey restarted around 1930. According to the National Register nomination, it was one of only six Kentucky bourbon distilleries to come through Prohibition intact.
Lewis Rosenstiel's Schenley company bought the distillery in 1929 and rebuilt it after repeal, with a new warehouse in 1935, a new stillhouse and fermenters in 1936 and a new mash house in 1937. In 1969 it was renamed Ancient Age, after its best-known bourbon. By the early 1980s bourbon was out of fashion. Schenley sold the distillery in 1982 or 1983 (sources differ) to Age International, a company formed by former Fleischmann's executives, and by 1991 the workforce was down to about 50.
Elmer T. Lee and the first single barrel
The turnaround started with an idea from Elmer T. Lee, a University of Kentucky engineering graduate who joined the distillery in 1949 and rose to plant manager and master distiller. Lee, who had learned from Albert Blanton, picked out individual barrels and bottled each one on its own. Blanton's, named for his old boss and launched in Japan in 1984, is described in the National Register nomination as the first commercially marketed single-barrel bourbon. Lee retired in 1985, stayed on as an ambassador, and died in 2013, weeks short of his 94th birthday.
Sazerac and the name Buffalo Trace
In 1992 the Sazerac Company, owned by the Goldring family of New Orleans, bought the distillery, while Japan's Takara Shuzo bought Age International and its brands. That is why Blanton's, Elmer T. Lee, Rock Hill Farms and Ancient Age are still owned by Age International and made at the distillery under contract. Sazerac renovated the site and in 1999 renamed it Buffalo Trace, after the old crossing, launching a flagship bourbon of the same name that summer.
The years since have been about growth and experiments. Harlen Wheatley, a chemical engineer who joined in 1995, became master distiller in 2005. The Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, an annual set of older and barrel-proof bottles, began in 2000. The Van Winkle family's bourbons have been made at Buffalo Trace through a joint venture since 2002. Warehouse X, opened in 2013, holds barrels in chambers where light, temperature, humidity and airflow can each be controlled. The Single Oak Project bottled 192 barrels from 96 individual trees to test one variable at a time; drinkers voted Barrel #80 the winner, and in 2026 the distillery recreated it as a permanent release. And in 2016, renovation work on the old O.F.C. building uncovered the buried floors and fermenting vats of Taylor's earlier distilleries, quickly nicknamed "Bourbon Pompeii."
Why the bottles are hard to find
Demand for these bourbons grew faster than anyone planned for a decade earlier, and whiskey can't be aged faster. The distillery warned of shortages in 2013, and in 2014 said every one of its bourbon brands was on strict allocation. Allocation means each state gets a set quantity through distributors, and retailers set shelf prices. Sazerac's answer was a $1.2 billion expansion, begun in 2015 and finished in January 2025, that added 19 warehouses and roughly doubled yearly capacity to about 500,000 barrels. Those barrels need years in the warehouse, so the extra supply reaches shelves gradually.
Not everything went to plan. In April 2025 the Kentucky River crested at about 48 feet at the distillery, its second-highest level on record, stopping bourbon production for around a month. Demand hasn't cooled: in a year when the overall bourbon category is shrinking, Impact Databank figures reported in October 2026 showed store sales of E.H. Taylor up 96 percent, Weller up 61 percent, Eagle Rare up 29 percent and Buffalo Trace up 21 percent.
How it's made
Buffalo Trace doesn't publish its exact recipes, so treat mash bill details as well-informed estimates. Whisky Advocate and others describe a few core recipes. A low-rye bourbon mash is used for Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, E.H. Taylor, Stagg and Benchmark. A higher-rye bourbon mash is used for Blanton's, Elmer T. Lee and Rock Hill Farms. A wheated mash, with wheat in place of rye, is used for Weller and the Van Winkle bourbons. Rye recipes are used for Sazerac Rye and the E.H. Taylor ryes. The differences between bottles come mostly from the recipe, the age, the warehouse and spot each barrel aged in, and the proof it's bottled at. To understand why the warehouse matters so much, see how climate and warehouses age whiskey.
The bottles
- Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon: the flagship, launched in 1999, bottled at 90 proof.
- Eagle Rare 10 Year: a brand Seagram introduced in 1975, made at Buffalo Trace since Sazerac bought it in 1989. It carries a 10-year age statement.
- Colonel E.H. Taylor Small Batch: bottled in bond, a nod to the law Taylor fought for.
- Blanton's Original Single Barrel: Elmer T. Lee's single-barrel idea, made under contract for Age International.
- Weller 12 Year and Weller Full Proof: wheated bourbons, softer and rounder than the rye-recipe bottles.
- Sazerac Rye 6 Year: the rye behind the Sazerac cocktail.
- Benchmark Single Barrel: the distillery's value line, in a single-barrel version.
- Rare bottles we have from time to time: George T. Stagg from the Antique Collection, and Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve 15 Year.
Stock on these moves fast; the full line-up we carry is in our Buffalo Trace collection.
How to choose
- A first bottle, or an everyday pour: Buffalo Trace. It's the house style at an approachable proof, and it works neat or in an Old Fashioned.
- A step up with an age statement: Eagle Rare 10 Year.
- A gift with a story: Blanton's (the horse-and-jockey stopper is a collector's item) or E.H. Taylor Small Batch, which has the Bottled-in-Bond history behind it.
- Someone who likes softer, sweeter bourbon: Weller 12.
- Someone who adds water to everything: a barrel-proof bottle like Weller Full Proof or Stagg, so they can find their own strength. Our guide to what proof means explains why water changes the taste.
- The cocktail maker: Sazerac Rye.
New to tasting side by side? Start with how to taste whiskey, then pour Buffalo Trace next to Weller: the same distillery, with rye on one side and wheat on the other.
Visiting
The distillery is at 113 Great Buffalo Trace in Frankfort, and all its tours and tastings are free. Options include a general tour, a hard-hat production tour and an Old Taylor tour through the "Bourbon Pompeii" ruins. Reservations are recommended, because walk-up spots are limited. Check the distillery's website for current hours before you go.
FAQ
Who owns Buffalo Trace?
The Sazerac Company, a family-owned company based in New Orleans, has owned the distillery since 1992. Blanton's is the exception among its best-known bourbons: it's made at Buffalo Trace but owned by Age International, part of Japan's Takara Shuzo.
Is Buffalo Trace the oldest distillery in America?
The distillery claims to be the oldest continuously operating distillery in the US, and other distilleries make rival claims. What the records support is that industrial distilling on the site dates to 1857–58, and that it was one of the few Kentucky distilleries to stay open through Prohibition, bottling medicinal whiskey.
Why is Buffalo Trace bourbon so hard to find?
Demand grew faster than the whiskey laid down years earlier could cover, so the distillery sells its bourbons on allocation, with set amounts per state. A $1.2 billion expansion finished in 2025 roughly doubled capacity, but that new whiskey needs years to age.
What's the difference between Buffalo Trace and Eagle Rare?
Both are widely reported to come from the same low-rye bourbon mash. Eagle Rare carries a 10-year age statement; Buffalo Trace doesn't state an age. Both are bottled at 90 proof.
Are Buffalo Trace tours free?
Yes. All tours and tastings are free, but they book up, so reserve ahead on the distillery's website.