Alcohology - "Buffalo Trace"

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A herd of buffalo carved a path across Kentucky, and that same path led to one of the most storied distilleries in America. We follow that trail from frontier stills to a modern distillery campus, unpacking how Buffalo Trace became a benchmark for bourbon history, science, and hype—often all in the same bottle.

We start with the unlikely origin story: prehistoric buffalo trails guiding settlers to a natural river crossing, early farm mashups turning into documented distilling, and a run of owners who built, rebuilt, and refined through fires and setbacks. The narrative accelerates with E.H. Taylor Jr., who pushed for federal standards and turned whiskey making into a repeatable craft, then shifts to George T. Stagg’s scale-up. The Prohibition chapter proves pivotal too as stills were kept running and knowledge alive.

From there, we spotlight Elmer T. Lee, the WWII veteran who treated bourbon like a system to be modeled. His creation of Blanton’s Single Barrel reframed what premium could mean, celebrating individuality instead of blending it away. Under Sazerac, the portfolio expanded into a galaxy—Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, W.L. Weller, George T. Stagg, Elmer T. Lee, and the Van Winkle partnership—each with distinct mash bills, age statements, and loyal followings.

We break down why bottles vanish and why billion-dollar expansions still can’t rush oak. Through floods, fires, and shifting tastes, Buffalo Trace keeps threading tradition with experimentation, turning history into a living practice that you can actually taste.

If you love bourbon lore and the craft behind the hype, this story is your pour. Hit follow, share with a friend who’s still hunting their first Eagle Rare, and drop a review to tell us what bottle you’re chasing next. Cheers.

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Episode Transcript

Matt (00:00):
Welcome to Alcohology.

Unfiltered Studios Announcer (00:03):
I wonder why they call it a
cocktail.

Matt (00:05):
Yes, I'd like to know more about the Venus Venifera.
I'm very interested in theterwata.

Unfiltered Studios Announcer (00:10):
We talking about two carbon, six
hydrogen, and one oxygen atom.
We talking about half ofalcohol.

Matt (00:17):
This episode
If you go back a few thousandyears, the Kentucky River Valley
wasn't home to distillers orfarmers.
It was home to buffalo.
Enormous prehistoric herds thatcarved deep paths across the
landscape, the same paths theywalked generation after
generation.
These trails were calledtraces, and one of those traces

(00:40):
led straight to a natural rivercrossing in Frankfurt, Kentucky.
Fast forward to 1775.
The U.S.
isn't even a country yet, andsome settlers realize this
buffalo crossing is the perfectspot for farming and milling.
And where there's grain,there's always one guy who says,
hey, we should ferment that.
That's how the very firstdocumented distilling began on
the land where Buffalo Tracesits today, and those guys were

(01:01):
Hancock Lee and his brotherWillis Lee.
By 1812, a proper distillerywas built by Harrison Blanton,
and over the next severaldecades, the site bounces
between owners who upgrade theequipment, build better
warehouses, and occasionallyburn it down.
Because in the 1800s everythingcaught fire at least twice a
year.
But the place kept rebuilding,kept refining, and kept
producing.

(01:22):
And then, in the 1870s, Bourbongets his first true reformer,
Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor,Jr.
Yep, E.H.
Taylor.
Taylor buys the distillery andrenames it OFC, Old Fire Copper.
He also decides that whiskeymaking should be a science, not
a port in the barrel and preykind of situation.
He modernizes the distillery,pushes for federal standards,

(01:43):
and becomes one of the loudestvoices demanding quality in
American spirits.
He is a major reason we knowwhat's in our bottles today.
Eventually, the distillery endsup in the hands of businessman
George T.
Stag, who renames thedistillery after himself,
industrializes the operation,expands the plant, and installs
steam heat in the warehouses,which is likely the first
climate-controlled whiskey agingin America.

(02:03):
He turns the distillery intoone of the biggest and most
advanced distilleries in theworld.
Then prohibition hits.
In 1920, nearly everydistillery in America goes dark,
boarded up, padlocked, silent,no more fun.
But this one survives.
Why?
Two magic words.
Medicinal whiskey.
Personally, I think that underthe right circumstances, all

(02:24):
whiskey is medicinal, but Idigress.
Federal law at the time allowedfor a handful of distilleries
to keep producing whiskey frommedical prescriptions, and this
site was one of only six in theentire US that stayed open.
Doctors handed out whiskey foreverything from colds, anxiety
to the flu, headaches, generalweakness, or my baby is teething
and I'm losing my mind.
Because of that loopholedistills kept running, the

(02:46):
distillery stayed alive, andtoday Buffalo Trace can
legitimately claim to be theoldest continually operating
distillery in the nation.
After Prohibition, after theDepression, after war rationing,
the distillery continuedevolving, and in the mid-20th
century hired a young World WarII radar bombardier named Elmer
T.
Lee.
Elmer approached whiskey like amathematician.
He studied warehouse dynamics,aging patterns, and flavor

(03:08):
chemistry long before flavorchemistry was even a phrase.
In 1984, he created somethingrevolutionary: Blanton's Single
Barrel Bourbon, the firstmainstream single barrel bourbon
product.
Elmer said, What if wecelebrate a barrel's individual
character instead of hiding it?
He named it after his oldmentor, Albert B.
Blanton, and in the process heaccidentally created bourbon
collector culture as we know it.

(03:28):
Blanton's became a phenomenon,and the idea of a premium single
barrel bourbon spread likewildfire.
Then, in 1992, the SazeracCompany spoofs in and buys the
whole operation.
Seven years later, in 1999,they release a brand new
flagship, Buffalo Trace Bourbon.
A tribute to the old BuffaloTrail, where the whole history
began.
From there, the brand exploded.

(03:49):
Suddenly, Buffalo Trace becomesthe center of a whole bourbon
universe.
WL Weller with its soft weededmash pills that people now call
Baby Pappy, Eagle Rare, theelegant, well-aged classic,
George T.
Stag, the barrel-proof monsterthat sends collectors into a
frenzy, Elmer T.
Lee, which was created as atribute to the man himself and
presented to him at hisretirement, and let's not forget

(04:09):
Pappy Van Winkle, which thedistillery produces for the Van
Winkle family, a partnershipthat launched the most famously
rare bourbon brand in America.
Suddenly, bourbon isn't just adrink, it's a status symbol.
But here's where we leavehistory and enter modern
mystery.
Why is this stuff so hard tofind?
Why can't you walk into a storeand grab a bottle of Buffalo
Trace like you would any other$30 to $50 bourbon?

(04:31):
Well, here's the truth.
Bourbon takes time.
Buffalo Trace bourbon is widelybelieved to be aged somewhere
between 6 to 10 years.
Eagle Rare is 10 years, Wellerand Pappy spend over a decade
relaxing in oak absorbing theflavor.
That means every bottle on theshelf today was a gamble someone
took a decade ago.
Now mix that with a massivebourbon boom for the last 10
years, a boom nobody saw coming.

(04:52):
Demand skyrocketed, newdrinkers, collectors, flippers,
cocktail bars, TikTok reviewers,everyone, myself included,
wanted Buffalo Trace all atonce.
The distillery is expanding,and not in small ways.
They've poured more than abillion dollars into new
warehouses, more fermenters, asecond still house, and huge
bottling lines.
But even new whiskey needstime.

(05:14):
You can't rush oak no matterhow much money you throw at it.
There's also allocation, thesystem where stores only get a
limited amount of certainbottles.
Even the Buffalo Trace giftshop has to buy from a
distributor like everybody else,meaning they can sell out of
their daily stock in minutes,even limiting certain bottles to
one person every few months.
And because supply can't keepup with demand, the secondary

(05:36):
market, the online gray marketturns $40 into $120 bottles, $60
bottles into $300 bottles, and15-year Pappy into a down
payment on a used car.
It's not a conspiracy, it'swhat happens when slow-age
whiskey meets modern consumermadness.
But the wild part is, throughall the chaos, Buffalo Trace
keeps leaning into science andhistory.
They built Warehouse X, aresearch building designed to

(05:59):
test how temperature, light,airflow, and humidity affect
bourbon.
They've been experimenting withdifferent barrel types,
different woods, and even newuses for whiskey waste, like
turning spent grain intosuitable foods.
The distillery's historicalsignificance was recognized in
2013 when it was awardedNational Historic Landmark
status.
Putting it in the same leagueas Carnegie Hall, the Empire

(06:19):
State Building, and the HooverDam, except none of those places
give you tasty samples at theend of the tour.
Floods, they've survived them.
Fires, survive those too.
Changing tastes, recessions,prohibition, survived it all.
And today, when you hold abottle of Buffalo Trace, Eagle
Rare, Weller, Blantons, Stag,Elmer T.
Lee, or any of its cousins,you're holding not just a
bourbon, you're holding 250years of American distilling

(06:43):
history.
A history shaped by BuffaloTrails, Frontier settlers,
obsessive scientists, ambitiousbusinessmen, and millions of
impatient customers feverishlyrefreshing their liquor store's
webpage every morning.
So the next time you score abottle, remember you didn't just
buy bourbon, you bought astory.
One that started with a herd ofbuffalo and continues with the
bottle you are holding.

(07:03):
This has been Alcohology,Buffalo Trace classes dismissed.
Drink your homeworkresponsibly.
This stuff is delicious andreally damn hard to find.

Unfiltered Studios Announc (07:11):
This podcast is a production of
Unfiltered Studios.
If you would like to know moreabout joining Unfiltered
Studios, please visit ourwebsite at unfpod.com for more
information.

Matt (07:22):
Would you like to visit the Buffalo Trace Distillery in
Kentucky?
Give our sponsor, the PoppinsTravel Company, a call at
407-494-4070, or visit them atPoppins Travel Company.com.
Would you like to suggestsomething for us to drink, give
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(07:43):
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(08:04):
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Cheers, friends!