Buffalo Trace Antique Collection Analysis

[fussychicken]

Howdy all. Although I rarely get to read the board and post these days, it is a lazy Saturday night here, and this on again/off again database I've had for the BTAC is something that I have been wanting to share with everyone. Basically, I wanted to try and put all the info sheet info into one place to be able to look and see differences between brands and years. So here it is!

Info about the Analysis:

• I've looked far and wide for whatever info sheets I can find. The sticky in this sub-forum looks to have all that are out there. I contacted Buffalo Trace about some of the earlier ones, and while they were nice enough to write back, they claimed they did not have them. Anyone have the 2000-2004 info sheets?
  
• I was curious about how many actual bottles were produced for each brand and year, so I calculated it based on the evaporation loss and number of barrels. I then divided by 50 just to see what a very rough allocation was per state. You can see these calculations in the blue columns. To get these numbers for the Sazerac and Eagle, I made a guess on the barrel exit proof.
  
• Finally, many thanks to those that take the time to scan and post these info sheets! Part of the reason the BTAC is so great!

Some interesting things I see when looking at the data

• Production is obviously on the rise for Stagg and Handy. Eagle Rare 17 and WLW seem to be variable. Sazerac is obviously stuck at 28 to make it last.
  
• Didn't realize that Eagle and Sazerac were chill filtered. Boooo!
  
• In 2010 they seemed to really expand their search for good barrels. They pulled from significantly more warehouses than other years
  
• WLW seems to be pulled from all over the place, but "I" seems to be a good one
  
• Stagg was also popular from Q and I earlier on, now it seems to be coming from K.
  
• Also interesting to see Handy being pulled from different locations, with K being a slight favorite.
  
• Overall K, Q, and I seem to be the best warehouses.
  
• The relationship between Stagg and Eagle seems to be pretty much as expected. Eagle seems in many cases to be a watered down filtered Stagg, as they seem to be coming from similar places most of the time.

What do you guys see in the data? Anyone see any mistakes?

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BTAC SS Master.pdf

[fussychicken]

Another fun thing this data lets you do is plot some interesting comparisons. For example, I was curious about the difference between age and evaporation loss. You can see the plot attached with my notes on it.

As a reference I also plotted the pink line based on something I remember hearing a while back. That is, the angles share is roughly 5% the first year, and then 3% each year after that. To be honest, I'm not quite sure where I read that and now can't seem to find the reference. Nevertheless, it makes for an interesting contrast to the BTAC evaporation rates.

When looking at this, you can see that the BTAC seems to be generally from barrels that are suffering from significant angles share! This doesn't seem to be too much of a surprise though, as the stereotype is that the hotter the barrel, the better the bourbon. This especially seems to be the case for the WLW. That is quiet a lot of evaporation for roughly 12 years of age!!

You can also see the strange 2007 and 2008 Eagle Rare on this graph. I seem to remember that both years had good reviews. Maybe a correlation here?

Another thing to see is that although it is in SS, the Sazerac 18 seems to be evaporating slightly each year. Poor Sazerac 18!

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[barturtle]

The 2001 ER17 sheet is in there (I own it, I scanned it, I posted it in the thread I started)

[nor02lei]

Howdy all. Although I rarely get to read the board and post these days, it is a lazy Saturday night here, and this on again/off again database I've had for the BTAC is something that I have been wanting to share with everyone. Basically, I wanted to try and put all the info sheet info into one place to be able to look and see differences between brands and years. So here it is!

Info about the Analysis:

• I've looked far and wide for whatever info sheets I can find. The sticky in this sub-forum looks to have all that are out there. I contacted Buffalo Trace about some of the earlier ones, and while they were nice enough to write back, they claimed they did not have them. Anyone have the 2000-2004 info sheets?
  
• I was curious about how many actual bottles were produced for each brand and year, so I calculated it based on the evaporation loss and number of barrels. I then divided by 50 just to see what a very rough allocation was per state. You can see these calculations in the blue columns. To get these numbers for the Sazerac and Eagle, I made a guess on the barrel exit proof.
  
• Finally, many thanks to those that take the time to scan and post these info sheets! Part of the reason the BTAC is so great!

Some interesting things I see when looking at the data

• Production is obviously on the rise for Stagg and Handy. Eagle Rare 17 and WLW seem to be variable. Sazerac is obviously stuck at 28 to make it last.
  
• Didn't realize that Eagle and Sazerac were chill filtered. Boooo!
  
• In 2010 they seemed to really expand their search for good barrels. They pulled from significantly more warehouses than other years
  
• WLW seems to be pulled from all over the place, but "I" seems to be a good one
  
• Stagg was also popular from Q and I earlier on, now it seems to be coming from K.
  
• Also interesting to see Handy being pulled from different locations, with K being a slight favorite.
  
• Overall K, Q, and I seem to be the best warehouses.
  
• The relationship between Stagg and Eagle seems to be pretty much as expected. Eagle seems in many cases to be a watered down filtered Stagg, as they seem to be coming from similar places most of the time.

What do you guys see in the data? Anyone see any mistakes?

-

I got the 2002 and 2004 Stagg, but the 2002 does only have 15 years as a fact and you seem to have the 2004 facts already.

Leif

[SMOWK]

Any chance you could post the actual spreadsheet so anyone can update it? Neat!

[fixbonz]

awesome chart. for completeness, i believe there were 2 spring 2005 staggs, the "a" group released in kentucky (130.9) and the "b" group for the rest of us (131.8). my anecdotal note had them at the same 16.67yr age. rumored also is multiple releases of the 2000 and 2001 wlw and the 2001 er17. thanks again for your efforts.

[darkluna]

Check out this post regarding the # of bottles of 2004 Stagg

http://www.straightbourbon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=35075&postcount=58

[fussychicken]

Thanks for the comments everyone!

The 2001 ER17 sheet is in there (I own it, I scanned it, I posted it in the thread I started)

Doh! Not sure how I missed this one. Thanks barturtle. I added it.

I got the 2002 and 2004 Stagg, but the 2002 does only have 15 years as a fact and you seem to have the 2004 facts already.

Thanks Lief, but the info sheet that barturtle had for the 2001 Eagle seemed to have most all of the info on it that the modern sheets do. If the one you have has info like evaporation and such, I'd love to get a copy. Thanks!

Any chance you could post the actual spreadsheet so anyone can update it? Neat!

Yes, I want to do that, but need to figure out some place to host it. I wish I could add it with the built in attachments in the forum, but am not seeing a way to do that with an excel file.

awesome chart. for completeness, i believe there were 2 spring 2005 staggs, the "a" group released in kentucky (130.9) and the "b" group for the rest of us (131.8). my anecdotal note had them at the same 16.67yr age. rumored also is multiple releases of the 2000 and 2001 wlw and the 2001 er17. thanks again for your efforts.

Yeah, I wasn't sure what to do about the KY 05. That info sheet implys the 80 barrels were split between the two. So I updated it, and made a guess that 20 went to KY and 60 to the rest of the US.

Check out this post regarding the # of bottles of 2004 Stagg

http://www.straightbourbon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=35075&postcount=58

Very interesting! Thanks for remembering this, because I sure didn't. Interesting to see Ken mention a more aggressive first year angles share. I've updated the chart to show that. This places the line closer to the actual evaportaion for a good part of the BTAC. The WLWs still stand out though!

Also interesting to see his production numbers!!! Ken says they produced 4,134 bottles which is significantly lower than the calculated number. HMMM!! What is going on here? Not really sure. I double checked my formulas, and the all seem to be correct.

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BTAC SS Master.pdf

[SMOWK]

Yes, I want to do that, but need to figure out some place to host it. I wish I could add it with the built in attachments in the forum, but am not seeing a way to do that with an excel file.

http://www.mediafire.com

Free anonymous hosting up to 200mb. Great site that I use all the time to transfer large files to people.

[fussychicken]

Many thanks again to barturtle and others for posting the BTAC info sheets. Now that the 2011 sheets are available, I've added them to this database. Some interesting things to note for 2011:

• Stagg: Looks the be pretty much similar juice from last year, but now with an extra year of age. Number of barrels slightly down to 124. This is the oldest Stagg yet.
  
• Sazerac: As usual, another year in the tank. Lost about .75% during the year.
  
• Eagle: Wow, very low allocation this year. Only 24 barrels. I guess BT got tired of us not purchasing this one. Like stagg, looks to be similar to last years juice but with an extra year on it.
  
• WLW: Now this is an interesting one. Looks to be similar to the juice from the 2009 release. Of course, it now has 2 extra years on it. Would be interesting to compare the two.
  
• Handy: Pretty standard release for Handy. Back to warehouse K like in 2009.

Overally a pretty "old" year for BTAC. Both stagg and eagle in the 18s. WLW almost 13. Handy and Sazerac look to both be pretty standard this time.

Good luck hunting these down everyone...

BTAC SS Master 2011 update.pdf

[DrinkyBanjo]

Wouldn't it make sense to clarify the Wellers? I would call the first 3 years Weller 19 and the reintroduction WLWeller.

Just my .02.