The Complete Guide to Buffalo Trace Whiskey Brands | Gear Patrol (2024)

Chandler Bondurant

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From Pappy Van Winkle to dirt-cheap co*cktail whiskey, here’s every bottle you need to know.

Welcome to Brand Breakdown, a series of comprehensive yet easy-to-digest guides to your favorite companies, with insights and information you won’t find on the average About page.

There is perhaps no American whiskey maker more respected or awarded as Buffalo Trace Distillery. The brands under its umbrella are some of the biggest names in whiskey — Pappy Van Winkle, E.H. Taylor, W.L. Weller and so on. But the shuffling and mass coalescing of major whiskey brands can make it strenuous to know your Pappys from your Wellers and harder still to recall the $1,000 difference between Antique Weller 107 and the Antique Collection’s William Larue Weller. That’s why we’re here. From impossible-to-find grails to $10 mixers, Buffalo Trace offers it all. Here’s your cheat sheet to Buffalo Trace brands, bottles, history and more.

Buffalo Trace Distillery Whiskey Brands

Buffalo Trace Distillery produces a whole lot more than just its namesake bourbon. Nearly 20 different brands of whiskey are distilled and bottled at the distillery, and almost all of them are among the most acclaimed in their respective classes. Below, we’ve listed every brand, along with our preferred bottle from each.

Buffalo Trace Bourbon

• Collection: Buffalo Trace Bourbon

Drizly

Buffalo Trace Bourbon

Specs

ABV	45%
Age	8+ years
Average Price	$37

• $31.99 at Caskers

Buffalo Trace’s namesake whiskey is the distillery’s second most affordable bottle, behind Benchmark, which makes the value all the more remarkable. The bottle is cut to an easy-drinking 90 proof and, because it’s made alongside your Staggs, Wellers and Van Winkles, every bottle is a lottery ticket.

You could wind up with a normal bottle of Trace or something a little more special. Caramel and vanilla do the heavy lifting on the palate while an oaky brown sugar finish rolls in nice and slow. It’s a rare affordable bourbon that checks boxes for the ability to drink neat or in co*cktails. And it’s wildly popular, with strong brand recognition showing up on everything from merch to Buffalo Trace cigars.

Benchmark

• Collection: Benchmark Old No. 8, Benchmark Top Floor, Benchmark Small Batch, Benchmark Bonded, Benchmark Full Proof, Benchmark Single Barrel

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Benchmark Old No. 8 Bourbon

Specs

ABV	40%
Age	3+ years
Average Price	$11

• $31.99 at Total Wine

Just call it Benchmark. With a suggested retail price of $12, Buffalo Trace Distillery’s cheapest juice has earned a place in the hearts of whiskey writers, cash-strapped bourbon drinkers and anyone trying to avoid party guests drinking the good stuff. Its ultra-low price makes it a strong choice for a punch mixer, and the slightly watery 80 proof means neat drinking is relatively easy (don’t bother watering it down further). Served straight, it hits you with honey and a bit of orange peel on the nose and a medium-strength slow burn on the tongue. Expect a lightly oaky, fairly cherry-forward follow-through.

Eagle Rare Bourbon

• Collection: Eagle Rare, Double Eagle Very Rare, Eagle Rare 17 Year-Old, Eagle Rare 25

Drizly

Eagle Rare

Specs

ABV	45%
Age	10 years
Average Price	$78

• $80.99 at Caskers

Amid a shrinking market of well-aged, realistically priced bourbons, Eagle Rare keeps its feathers above water. The 90-proof bottle separates itself by retaining its exceptionally rare 10-year age statement and a retail price below $50. In a whiskey world where transparency is disappearing and exclusivity is burgeoning, Eagle Rare is positioned as an affordable luxury for the everyman. Of course, the newest expression at 25 years old — an age nearly unheard of for bourbon — is a different beast entirely and is close to the pinnacle of luxury bourbon.

Eagle Rare bourbon can generally be described as a richer, deeper, better Benchmark. Made from the same mashbill, it follows much of the same beat – a honey-orange peel nose and manageable burn, especially. Once its coated the palate, things change: expect less fruit, more wood, undercurrents of toffee and a bit of spice.

E.H. Taylor, Jr.

• Collection: E.H. Taylor, Jr. Small Batch, E.H. Taylor, Jr. Single Barrel, E.H. Taylor, Jr. Barrel Proof, E.H. Taylor, Jr. Straight Rye, E.H. Taylor, Jr. Old Fashioned Sour Mash, E.H. Taylor, Jr. Warehouse C Tornado Surviving, E.H. Taylor, Jr. Cured Oak, E.H. Taylor, Jr. Seasoned Wood, E.H. Taylor, Jr. Four Grain, E.H. Taylor, Jr. Amaranth, E.H. Taylor, Jr. 18 Year Marriage, E.H. Taylor, Jr. Warehouse C Bourbon

Drizly

E.H. Taylor, Jr. Small Batch

Specs

ABV	50%
Age	4+ years
Average Price	$128

Read our full review of the E.H. Taylor, Jr. Small Batch

• Shop Now

Carrying the name of one Edmund Haynes Taylor, Jr., Buffalo Trace Distillery’s E.H. Taylor collection has a bottle for every whiskey drinker. By virtue of hosting such a wide range of expressions — small batch, single barrel, barrel proof, straight rye and a host of valuable one-offs — the brand rides the line between everyday drinkers and bottles worth getting into a fistfight over.

Head and shoulders among the group of one-offs is a legendary bottle known as Warehouse C Tornado Surviving bourbon. With “1st and Only” scrawled under the masthead, this bottle is the product of a warehouse ripped apart by a tornado, the barrels inside open to the elements of a sticky Kentucky spring. The result is a bottle rife with weirdness and nearly impossible to find — that is unless you’re willing to drop close to $11,000 for it.

It’s difficult to nail down tasting notes for E.H. Taylor because it comes in such variety, but there are some throughlines. Unless it’s rye, it carries a corn-driven sweetness, vanilla notes throughout and a buttery mouthfeel and finish.

Van Winkle

• Collection: Old Rip Van Winkle 10 Year, Van Winkle Special Reserve 12 Year, Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye 13 Year, Pappy Van Winkle 15 Year, Pappy Van Winkle 20 Year, Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year

Drizly

Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve

Specs

ABV	45.2%
Age	20 years
Average Price	$4,488

• $3,776.99 at Flaviar

  See Also

  Buffalo Trace Bourbon Price, Sizes & Buying Guide - DrinkStackEvery Buffalo Trace Distillery Bourbon Brand, Ranked - Tasting TableWhiskey Review: Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight BourbonBuffalo Trace Bourbon Review [In Depth] The Whiskey Shelf

Other than its stuffed trophy cabinet and sickening price tags, the Van Winkle line is known for its use of wheat — the famed wheat mashbill that all its whiskeys (except the rye, obviously) start as — and very high age statements. Though the Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve line is the most coveted (and the only one with “Pappy” included in the name), you’ll be hard-pressed to find a bottle for less than $1,000.

But how does it taste? Though ages differ rather dramatically from bottle to bottle, Van Winkle bourbon’s defining trait is its wheated mashbill, which makes for a soft sipping, low burn, enormously rich glass. There is citrus, sherry, wood, leather, pepper and cherries, too. That blend of impossible smoothness and mind-bending depth are what Pappy is known for.

Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon

• Collection: Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon, Blanton’s Gold, Blanton’s Straight from the Barrel

Drizly

Blanton’s Single Barrel

Specs

ABV	46.5%
Age	6 — 8 years
Average Price	$166

• $178.99 at Caskers

Blanton’s was founded in 1984 by bourbon legend Elmer T. Lee. Two rules define its character and charm: it’s a single barrel expression, which means every bottle is filled with whiskey from one barrel, rather than blended batches; and it’s aged in Warehouse H — one of few rickhouses in the world built entirely out of metal. The metal construction means the rickhouse lacks significant insulation, so the barrels inside are exposed to more aggressive temperature and humidity shifts than traditional wood or brick rickhouses. The result of this practice is a citrusy nose, vanilla-driven palate and dry, mellowing, slightly bitter finish.

There are four primary expressions — Original, Gold, Straight from the Barrel and Special Reserve — and until last year, only the Original was available in the U.S., while other bottles were sold in select international markets. Since, Gold and Straight From the Barrel have landed Stateside, albeit in very limited numbers and with significantly higher prices than they fetch abroad. Why? The brand is owned by a Japanese company called Takara Shuzo, who purchased it from another company called Age International. So while Buffalo Trace makes and owns the whiskey, it doesn’t necessarily control where Blanton’s is and isn’t.

George T. Stagg

• Collection: George T. Stagg, Stagg

Drizly

George T. Stagg Bourbon

Specs

ABV	Varies, barrel-proof
Age	Varies
Average Price	$1,459

• $1,476.99 at Caskers

Named for the man who ran what was to become Buffalo Trace Distillery in the 19th century, George T. Stagg is one of Buffalo Trace’s smaller brands, consisting of just two bottles. One of those bottles, George T. Stagg, is basically a unicorn, as it’s one of the five bottles that makes up the white-hot annual release that is Buffalo Trace’s Antique Collection alongside Sazerac Rye 18 Year-Old, William Larue Weller, Thomas H. Handy, Eagle Rare 17 Year-Old.

So while most people don’t get a chance to try George T. Stagg bourbon, there’s still the other bottle under the Stagg name that’s just called “Stagg.” It’s a barrel-proof, unfiltered bourbon aged for about a decade that’s occasionally released in batches and typically sells for around $200 a bottle. So, yeah, most people don’t get to try that one, either.

W.L. Weller

• Collection: W.L. Weller Antique, W.L. Weller Full Proof, W.L. Weller Special Reserve, W.L. Weller 12 Year, W.L. Weller C.Y.P.B., W.L. Weller Single Barrel, William Larue Weller, Daniel Weller

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Weller 12 Year

Specs

ABV	45%
Age	12 years
Average Price	$297

• $269.99 at Nestor Liquor

Weller used to be the less sexy version of Pappy because it shares the same wheated mashbill and used to be much more affordable. Nowadays every Weller that’s not Special Reserve costs at least twice as much as the SRP would indicate. In order of rarity, here are the five mainline bottles of the stuff: Special Reserve, Antique 107, 12-Year, Single Barrel, Full Proof and William Larue Weller (part of the Antique Collection).

Special Reserve is most accessible — a NAS (no age statement) bottle that serves as a nice entryway into wheated bourbon (you can find bottles anywhere from $25 to $50, generally). The 12-year and Antique 107 are split by age and proof, with the Antique 107 being the second-highest proof of the Weller bottles and the 12-year being the second most mature. The most coveted of the group is the William Larue Weller bottle from the Antique Collection. Full Proof and Single Barrel are newer additions, with the Daniel Weller extension being the newest (and priciest), taking a more experimental approach in its first bottle, which is distilled from an ancient Egyptian grain called Emmer wheat.

When discussing wheaters, the general assumption is that extra-long stints in barrels are a good thing. This runs against how most seasoned drinkers describe rye-based bourbons. The trade-off is the younger bottles are, to many, lesser. The four- to seven-year-old Special Reserve hits you with a lot more ethanol flavor on the nose and palate than the 12-year, for example. With Weller, the higher the age, the more the whiskey blooms into the creamy, nutty, grassy, toasty booze everybody wants.

Traveller Whiskey

• Collection: Traveller Whiskey

Buffalo Trace

Traveller Whiskey

Specs

ABV	45%
Age	Undisclosed
Average Price	$40

Read our full review of the Traveller Whiskey

• $41.99 at Caskers

The newest addition to the Buffalo Trace portfolio, launched at the start of 2024, is also the distillery’s first collab. The brand teamed up with country music superstar Chris Stapleton to create a new whiskey under the singer’s “Traveller” label, and they managed to cook up something that’s tasty, affordable and — at least so far — available.

The whiskey is not a bourbon, but rather a blended whiskey. A blend of what, exactly, Buffalo Trace won’t say. But it clocks in at 90-proof and tastes like it definitely has some good ol’ Buffalo Trace bourbon in the mix, along with maybe a dash of the wheated bourbon recipe. Stapleton and Buffalo Trace master distiller Harlen Wheatley tasted over 50 blends before they settled on bottling this one, the 40th one they tried.

Old Charter

• Collection: Old Charter, French Oak, Chinkapin Oak, Mongolian Oak, Canadian Oak

Frootbat

Old Charter Oak French Oak Bourbon

Specs

ABV	45%
Age	10 years
Average Price	$538

• $472.99 at Frootbat

Confusingly, Old Charter Oak is both a very old and fairly new line of bourbon. An older bottle bearing the name has been scantly distributed in a few southeastern markets since the 1930s. The newer line was announced at the end of 2018. Think of it as a science experiment framed around a single chain in the whiskey-making process: wood. Every release is a bourbon aged in barrels made from oaks of different types, ages and origins. The first bottle was aged 10 years in oak from Mongolia and tastes like baking spices, nuts and a lot of wood. Buffalo Trace Distillery says to expect very limited releases four times a year.

Sazerac Rye

• Collection: Sazerac Rye 18 Year-Old, Sazerac Rye, Thomas H. Handy Sazerac

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Sazerac Rye

Specs

ABV	45%
Age	6 years
Average Price	$33

• $29.99 at Total Wine

Sazerac’s ryes taste a lot closer to bourbon than rye — or at least what we’ve come to expect from rye whiskey. Thanks to a rye industry that erupted alongside bourbon, loads of distillers were quickly bled dry of their rye stocks — MGP, an Indiana-based mass distilling operation, seized the opportunity to sell its rye whiskey to everybody who wanted it. And because their brand of rye is so rye-forward — reportedly 95 percent mashbill is rye — the whiskey-drinking public quickly grew accustomed to super spicy rye.

It’s speculated both of Sazerac’s ryes — the 6-year-old (sometimes called “Baby Saz”) and world-beating 18-year-old — are made with a 51-percent rye mashbill, which is the absolute bare minimum rye content. This means the stuff isn’t going to body slam your taste buds like your Bulleits, Redemptions and George Dickels.

Sold everywhere with street prices that don’t wander far from the SRP, Baby Saz shouldn’t be hugely problematic to find or buy. The 18-year — part of the aforementioned Antique Collection — is another matter entirely.

Ancient Age

• Collection: Ancient Age Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Drizly

Ancient Age Bourbon

Specs

ABV	40%
Age	3+ years
Average Price	$13

• $36.99 at Caskers

Ancient Age is another slightly confusing brand made by Buffalo Trace, but not owned by it. The ultra-affordable brand is another holdover from the Age International days, only Ancient Age keeps much of its juice in the US. Nowadays, Buffalo Trace bottles it in 80 and 90-proof variants (the 90-proof is called Ancient Ancient Age 10-Star). If you find a bottle called Ancient Ancient Age 10 Year, you should buy it immediately — the bottle was a Kentucky exclusive popular with bourbon nerds that was discontinued years back.

Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel

• Collection: Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel

Drizly

Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel Bourbon

Specs

ABV	45%
Age	Undisclosed
Average Price	$345

• $343.99 at Flaviar

Named after Buffalo Trace’s first official master distiller, Elmer T. Lee finds itself in an awkward spot in the greater Buffalo Trace lineup. It’s a single barrel offering bottled at a low-90s proof and it’s made with the distillery’s high-rye bourbon mashbill. If that sounds familiar, you’re probably familiar with Blanton’s, which shares those same attributes. The known difference is two proof points and whiskey that’s “hand selected and bottled to the taste and standards of Elmer T. Lee himself,” according to its webpage, but whiskey reviewers and retailers speculate the whiskey is aged for 10-plus years as opposed to Blanton’s 6 to 8 years.

Buffalo Trace Experimental Collection

• Collection: Constantly evolving

Buffalo Trace Distillery

Buffalo Trace Experimental Peated Bourbon

Specs

ABV	45%
Age	9+ years
Average Price	$1,445

Read our full review of the Buffalo Trace Experimental Peated Bourbon

• Shop Now

The Experimental Collection is rightly named. Since 2006, Harlen Wheatley and Buffalo Trace have pushed out new and sometimes great spirits through this line of 375ml bottles, but the gist is this: if mainline Buffalo Trace is typically more conservative, the Experimental Collection is where the distillery gets a little weird.

Past releases include various whiskeys finished in different wine casks, whiskeys aged in extra-large barrels, whiskeys aged in barrels cooked with infrared lights and even non-whiskey spirits like the 2021 release of a Baijiu-style spirit. Some Experimental releases may have led to the launch of individual Buffalo Trace brands, like the first and sixth releases, both of which played with the type of wood used to make aging barrels. It only took 10 or 15 years, but it seems Buffalo Trace’s Old Charter Oak line has taken what the distillery learned from its earlier experimenting and made something of it.

Much of the experimentation is done in Warehouse X, Buffalo Trace’s first-of-its-kind whiskey aging warehouse that can reshape itself to test the effects of light, temperature, humidity and air flow on aging whiskey. One recent release was a peated bourbon that delivered a delightfully smoky flavor not unlike an Islay Scotch.

O.F.C Vintages

• Collection: Constantly evolving

Buffalo Trace Distillery

O.F.C. Vintage 1980

Specs

ABV	45%
Age	36 years
Average Price	$64,931

• Shop Now

Upon its founding in 1870, O.F.C. was the most scientific distillery out there. Column stills, copper fermentation vats and a first-of-its-era steam heating system. The bottles made with its hallowed label are the rarest under the Buffalo Trace banner. Unless you take part in charity auctions (good on you), you’re unlikely to lay eyes on a bottle with the copper-embossed “O.F.C.” label. These are bottles of brown that pre-date Buffalo Trace itself, bottled from old bourbon stock bought up from other companies. One recent release, a 25-year-old bourbon, had a set retail price of $2,500, but the market can push prices into rare auction-level territory.

Buffalo Trace Antique Collection

• Collection: George T. Stagg, Sazerac Rye 18 Year-Old, William Larue Weller, Thomas H. Handy, Eagle Rare 17 Year-Old

Drizly

Thomas H. Handy Sazerac Straight Rye Whiskey

Specs

ABV	Varies, barrel-proof
Age	6 years
Averate Price	$926

Read our full review of the Thomas H. Handy Sazerac Straight Rye Whiskey

• $822.99 at Caskers

The Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, or BTAC as it’s commonly known among collectors, isn’t a true brand. Instead, it’s a collection of some of the most prized and sought-after bottles from the distillery’s other brands, like Weller, Eagle Rare and Sazerac. The five bottles of the collection are released in the fall, like Pappy, where they annually set off a frenzy and end up selling for many times above retail on the secondhand market, like Pappy.

Buffalo Trace Prohibition Collection

• Collection: Old Stagg, Golden Wedding, Three Feathers, Walnut Hill, Spiritus Frumenti

Buffalo Trace Distillery

Buffalo Trace Prohibition Collection

Specs

ABV	Varies
Age	Varies
Average Price	$1,000

Read our full review of the Buffalo Trace Prohibition Collection

• $1,000.00 at buffalotracedistillery.com

One of the newest addition to Buffalo Trace’s portfolio is definitely a notable one. Kicked off in 2023, the Prohibition Collection is Buffalo Trace’s recreation of five long-defunct whiskey brands that were made at the distillery a century prior. During Prohibition, Buffalo Trace Distillery — in those days known as George T. Stagg Distillery — was one of just six distilleries in the United States that was allowed to produce whiskey under a medical license.

Because of that fact, more than 40 brands turned to the distillery to have their whiskey made during those dark days. Buffalo Trace is bringing back these “medicinal whiskeys” by way of modern reinterpretations based on archival artwork and notes. The limited annual collection consists of five different brands that are only available as a complete set and which are expected to be replaced with newly revived brands every year going forward.

Buffalo Trace Distillery Bourbon Cream

• Collection: Bourbon Cream

Drizly

Buffalo Trace Distillery Bourbon Cream

Specs

ABV	15%
Age	Undisclosed
Average Price	$25

• $27.99 at Total Wine

OK, Buffalo Trace Bourbon Cream is not a whiskey. However, it does contain whiskey — it’s made with regular ol’ Buffalo Trace Bourbon — and people like the stuff, so it’s deserving of a mention here. This is a whiskey-based cream liqueur similar in taste and consistency to Bailey’s Irish Cream, though it’s not quite as sweet as that Irish treat. Buffalo Trace recommends mixing it in a little root beer for a boozy float.

Buffalo Trace Distillery Kosher Whiskey

• Collection: Wheat Recipe Bourbon, Straight Rye, Rye Recipe Bourbon

Drizly

Buffalo Trace Kosher Wheat Recipe

Specs

ABV	47%
Age	7 years
Average Price	$103

• $155.99 at Caskers

If you’re kosher, you can still enjoy some Buffalo Trace whiskey. The distillery teamed up with the Chicago Rabbinical Council to make some quality kosher juice. The collection consists of three whiskeys: a wheated bourbon, rye bourbon and straight rye, all of which use the same mashbills as their non-kosher counterparts. What sets them apart is the process they go through: They’re aged in special kosher barrels which are ceremonially sold to a non-Jewish executive in accordance with Passover requirements and are bottled in a specially-cleaned facility to ensure no contact with non-kosher spirits. The bottles are released each year after Passover.

Mashbills

All Buffalo Trace whiskey comes from one of four recipes. In whiskey-making patois, recipe means mashbill, or the specific levels of corn, malt, rye and barley combined to distill the beginnings of every bottle.

The catch? The distillery has marked the exact balance of barley, corn, wheat and rye as proprietary (though many try to crack the code). So we know which bottles start as which mashbills, but we don’t know specific percentages of each ingredient. Some one-off expressions — like Van Winkle’s Family Reserve Rye — are exceptions to the rule.

Mash #1: a low-rye bourbon mash (Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, E.H. Taylor, George T. Stagg, Benchmark)
Mash #2: a higher-rye bourbon mash (Blanton’s, Ancient Age)
Wheated Mashbill: replaces rye content with wheat (Pappy Van Winkle, Weller)
Rye Mashbill: mash made with a little more than 50 percent rye (Sazerac)

Pricing

Photo by Mary Garcia-Brayson

Bottles from brands Pappy Van Winkle and W.L. Weller can cost hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of dollars if you can even find them. These brands are allocated in limited quantities and have immense dedicated followings. The distillery distributes all of its whiskey with longstanding suggested retail prices (SRP). Take Pappy, a brand with bottle prices that climb well into the four-digit realm. In an honest world, you’d be able to find one for as low as $60. Not so in the world we occupy.

Upon the release of the high-end Wellers and all the Van Winkle Collection, Buffalo Trace has gone as far as to warn hunters of predatory pricing and encourages them to report it to local liquor authorities. In fact, due to explosive bottle demand, Facebook for a time became something of a haven for whiskey’s black markets — a place to buy the hard-to-find bourbon drinkers crave, albeit for many times the retail price. If you want to understand what a fair price for any of Buffalo Trace’s marquis bottles is, tools like Wine-Searcher are good starting points.

Acknowledging the problem, Buffalo Trace opened a new stillhouse adjacent to their existing one in 2023. The new facility is essentially a twin of the old stillhouse, and with both now fully in operation, Buffalo Trace has been able to double the production of all of its whiskey — including Pappy. While this increase in supply should eventually lead to a reduction in pricing as the distillery’s output comes more in line with consumer demand, any dip in pricing will take time. Although production at the distillery has doubled and is now at an all-time high, with additional aging warehouses alson having been built, whiskey still needs to age for several years before it is bottled. The youngest Pappy, for example, is 10 years old, meaning it will be at least a decade before the market feels any effects from this expansion.

Prestige

The whiskey landscape is run almost entirely by a handful of conglomerates and mega-corporations, and Buffalo Trace Distillery stands out. Names like Van Winkle, Weller, E.H. Taylor and Blanton’s are some of the most sought-after bottles of brown on the planet, and that’s before mentioning the coveted Antique Collection and O.F.C. Vintage releases.

While all those names carry weight with collectors and award show judges, its humbler mainline bottles are no less noble. Dating back to 2000, Buffalo Trace and Eagle Rare — the brand’s two most available brands — have earned more awards than are worth counting.

How to Score Bottles

All Buffalo Trace Distillery whiskeys are distributed “on allocation.” This means there’s a specific number of bottles allocated to each state throughout the year across its whole catalog. This is done to ensure retailers, restaurants and consumers in every state get a shot at some.

Your best shot at nabbing prized bottles boils down to being a good customer, which starts with communication. Frequent the shops in your area and talk to the person behind the counter. Ask when they usually get the bottle you’re hunting for and reward information with your patronage. Remember that if you’re looking for something (especially a Buffalo Trace Distillery whiskey), others are too — they don’t have to give you information, but they may be more inclined to do so if you’re a regular.

Beyond that, know your release periods. Bottles of Pappy are allocated on October 1 and typically hit shelves mid-October to early December. The Antique Collection is also distributed in the fall. Most other regularly distributed bottled arrive on shelves in the first week of the month.

Photo by Chandler Bondurant

Notable People

None of the names you see gracing bottles in the Buffalo Trace catalog were made up. They refer to real people from the distillery’s past. Here’s the shortlist:

William Larue Weller: The inventor of wheated bourbon whiskey. Much of Weller’s work — whiskey education, distilling and tinkering — was done in the early to mid-1800s. Bottles of Weller became so popular he’d dip his thumb in green ink and print it on each bottle to ensure authenticity.

E.H. Taylor, Jr.: Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor was a mid-19th-century banker turned bourbon hero. Taylor laid funding down for a number of distillers and later opened the O.F.C. Distillery. He was also instrumental in legitimizing the bourbon industry, playing a key role in getting the Bottled-in-Bond of 1897 through Congress.

George T. Stagg: Stagg worked hand-in-hand with Taylor in the creation of O.F.C. and later bought it off him. He re-named the distillery after himself and it remained the way for almost 100 years before being renamed again. This time the newly minted distillery was called “Buffalo Trace.” Stagg’s name appears on one bottle in the Antique Collection that’s one of the most collectible whiskeys in the world.

Albert B. Blanton: Blanton took over George T. Stagg’s distillery in 1921 and steered it through both the Great Depression and Prohibition (he convinced the government to let them continue making “medicinal whiskey”). He’s perhaps most famous for his stature as the founding father of the single barrel bourbon.

Julian Sr. “Pappy” Van Winkle: The cigar-toting man plastered on every bottle of Pappy is Pappy himself. Co-founder of the forward-thinking Stitzel-Weller Distillery, Pappy, along with the Wellers, showed the world the power of old, wheated bourbon.

Elmer T. Lee: Blanton’s protégé. Lee joined the distillery in 1949 and became its first Master Distiller. He’s credited as one of the people responsible for bourbon’s return to form in the ’70s and ’80s, along with other bourbon legends Booker Noe, Jimmy Russell and Parker Beam.

Harlen Wheatley: A four-time James Beard award nominee, Buffalo Trace’s Master Distiller since 2005 probably wouldn’t include himself in this list, but everyone else would. Since his ascension, Wheatley has led the distillery to unprecedented consistency in competition results year after year. He’s also spearheaded Buffalo Trace’s innovative initiatives like Old Charter Oak and Warehouse X.

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