Buffalo Trace

[Guest **DONOTDELETE**]

The Buffalo Trace distillery is located just about in downtown Frankfort, and as such it is the easiest distillery of all to find. They have done and are doing a lot of sprucing up to the old gal. The trademark buffalo head silhouette is now proudly emblazoned on the watertower. New and elaborate stonewalls adorned with big bronze Buffalo Trace plaques flank both sides of the entrance. Just inside the gatehouse is the Albert C. Blanton courtyard. It's a pastoral park of green grass and stone walkways. A small tranuqil creek runs through it with a series of rock terraced mini-falls. The life sized statue of Colonel Blanton now has some new company. Up on the hill is a new larger than life Buffalo carved out of a single piece of sequoia. This handsome fellow is as big or bigger than a Volkswagen Beetle.

The tour starts out with the ubiquitous video, but it was well done and leaves no doubt that Buffalo Trace is the new flagship brand and standard bearer. Floyd our tourguide knew his script and little else. The tour was bland at best. The stillhouse was not shown nor was the main bottling line.

The barrel dumping house was very interesting in that the workers had just finished dumping about 100 barrels of OLD FITZGERALD !!! "What's this doing here?" I asked Floyd. He was dumbstruck clueless.

The gift shop was small and unimaginative. They did however serve up a very small portion of Buffalo Trace. 750ml bottles of Buffalo Trace bearing Elmer T. Lee's autograph sold for $20. None of the other bourbons made at the distillery were available for sale. A bottle of Elmer T. Lee autographed by Elmer T. Lee would have made my day, but no.

Buffalo Trace is worth the visit. Have a picnic in the park with Col. Blanton and the big wooden buff.

Linn Spencer

Have Shotglass. Will Travel.

[Guest **DONOTDELETE**]

Linn,

I agree that Buffalo Trace is a great place to visit. I think that it can be argued that a day spent visiting Buffalo Trace, Labrot and Graham and Wild Turkey is a day well spent. Wild Turkey has always been my favorite distillery tour even though L&G is winning a place in my heart.

Mike Veach

[Guest **DONOTDELETE**]

I went to the Buffalo Trace website looking for some more information on their big wooden buffalo, and I found it in a press release dated Oct. 14th, 1999 entitled "$5 Million Renovation Brings History & Heritage of Buffalo Trace Distillery to Forefront".

"During the refurbishing of the grounds, a dying 300-year-old sycamore tree in the Clubhouse Courtyard was felled to prevent falling limbs from becoming a hazard to employees and visitors. The remaining stump was carved into a large buffalo by wood artisan Stan Shu to commemorate the distillery site's past as an ancient buffalo crossing."

Linn Spencer

Have Shotglass. Will Travel.

[Guest **DONOTDELETE**]

While I can't answer your questions about some of the things you saw at Buffalo Trace, I can recommend that if you plan to return, cantact Ken Weber at the distillery. He is the bourbon brand manager and if he is in the office (he seems to travel quite a bit), he can give an outstanding tour. I learned more about bourbon, both those made at Buffalo Trace and others, than I ever thought possible. You can reach him at kweber@buffalotrace.com.

[Ken Weber]

Linn,

I wanted to respond to your observation concerning the Old Fitz being dumped at the Buffalo Trace Distillery. We have a tremendous warehouse capacity and often age bourbon for other clients. If you went into Warehouse C, you may of noticed other well known products from nearby distillers. Also, with our modern bottling equipment, we perform contract packaging for other distilleries. Please know that Floyd has been sent back for additional programing, I mean educational training. In the future he will be a veritable walking encyclopedia on bourbon minutia! Okay, maybe not, but he will be able to answer that one question.

We have geared our tours to the level of our most common distillery visitors. Most of these people are looking more for entertainment, rather than indepth bourbon training. If you would like a more indepth discourse on our bourbons, please contact me and we can arrange for a special tour.

[Guest **DONOTDELETE**]

Thanks Ken! I'm planning a return trip for next years Bourbon Festival. We'll have to see just how many straight bourbonians are comming and maybe have a special tour just for us.

Linn Spencer

Have Shotglass. Will Travel.

[kitzg]

My thoughts exactly, Linn. Field trip!!

Greg

[Guest **DONOTDELETE**]

Hear! Hear!

Or better yet, There! There!

Just in case you'd like a peek at the weird bunch you could be dealing with, check out these photos from last September's Kentucky Bourbon Festival (you can follow the story, including why we were funning with Chuck Cowdery, in the "2000 Kentucky Bourbon Festival" thread in this same topic.

By the way, thanks for joining the forum. StraightBourbon.Com takes another leap further into quality discussion... and weirdness.

=John=

http://w3.one.net/~jeffelle/whiskey

[Ken Weber]

I look forward to it. Just let me know how many and when. Now that distilleries can offer tastings, perhaps we can do some indepth comparative analysis!

Ken

[kitzg]

Ken, thanks for your generosity. If a private tour for SB.C was to be organized around the KY Bourbon Festival we'd be looking at perhaps next Sept. 12 or 13.

Greg

[Ken Weber]

Let's just schedule a few weeks in advance.

Ken

[Ken Weber]

Now for the opportunity I have been waiting for, blatant product endorsement! Actually I have been waiting until we got our act together before I said anything. Our gift shop has finally been moved to renovated quarters in a former aging warehouse. Building number 28 was built in the late 1800s and now houses both the gift shop and our glass storage area. The gift shop itself is now spread across four rooms and the merchandise has likewise been expanded and better displayed. There is a tasting bar where all of our legal aged tourists are invited to sample our Buffalo Trace Bourbon. The number of tourists has increased by over five fold! However, I can tell that several tourists are counted more than once. Our last tour leaves at 3:00, and nearly everyone has a difficult time walking in a straight line!

Ken

[Guest **DONOTDELETE**]

Now that is very good news! Do you now have autographed bottles of Elmer T. Lee?

Linn Spencer

Have Shotglass. Will Travel.

[Ken Weber]

Linn,

Elmer has autographed bottles of Buffalo Trace, but not his namesake. State laws prevent us from selling more than one product in the gift shop. If you will let me know when you want to come for a tour, I can set it up with Elmer to be present and sign your bottle. I suggest waiting until Spring. I know that he has a standing golf game every Wednesday, but otherwise, we can try to work it out.

Ken

[Guest **DONOTDELETE**]

Worry not Ken. It will be in September during the Bourbon Festival, and not on a Wednesday. I hope we will have a good sized group of StraightBourbonians in attendance. Thank You for your kind offers of bourbonic hospitality.

Linn Spencer

Have Shotglass. Will Travel.

[Guest **DONOTDELETE**]

Buffalo Trace has made some much needed improvements to their website <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.buffalotrace.com>http://www.buffalotrace.com</A>

Newly added is a living history with Elmer T. Lee talking about how he makes whiskey. A

Also new is a historical timeline of the distillery. Simple and straightforward. A

The online store that was once under construction has been taken out to the dumpster. BT has a lot of neat goodies that people that can't make it out to the distillery just might like to order online. Maybe a new online store will magically appear someday.

Linn Spencer

Have Shotglass. Will Travel.

[kitzg]

Linn, and all,

a number of BT Distillery products are available through www.alcoholreviews.com

As you say, they have some great products and a great variety.

Greg

[johnrobe]

My only complaint about the Buffalo Trace website is that they don't include any information about their other bourbons. I can understand why they don't include Ancient Age or Old Charter, but in trade publications they market Elmer T. Lee SB, Eagle Rare, Weller, and Sazerac Rye alongside Buffalo Trace.....so why not include them on the website?

JR

[Guest **DONOTDELETE**]

JR there is a somewhat complicated arrangement between Buffalo Trace and Age International.

Let's see if I have this right - if not someone will correct me.

The Goldring family owns both Buffalo Trace Distillery and Sazrac along with these brands: Buffalo Trace; Old Charter, W.L. Weller, and Benchmark.

Age International owns Ancient Age and Blanton's.

I'm not sure about who owns what when it comes to Elmer T. Lee; Hancock's, Rock Hill Farms, or Eagle Rare.

Also remember that the Buffalo Trace website is still a work in progress. It would be nice to see it contain a page on each bourbon with some nice copy and some reasonable tasting notes.

Linn Spencer

Have Shotglass. Will Travel.

[bourbonmed]

Good intel Linn. I never heard of the Goldrings. How long have they been in the bourbon/distillery biz? What's the scoop on this familiy?

Omar

[Guest **DONOTDELETE**]

Omar must you always ask relevant questions? All I know about the Glodrings is that they have two beautiful and wealthy daughters. The young and sexy one is in love with you. The old and jaded daughter is in lust wth me and wants only to rent me cheaply by the quarter hour.I can only thank GOD that I'm just that damn good! You can rent my 'water works' but you can't steal my soul!

Linn Spencer

Have Shotglass. Will Travel.

[cowdery]

I don't necessarily have any special information, but it is my understanding that Sazerac owns the whole kit and kaboodle. If Age International still exists, it is as a subsidiary of Sazerac. Also, you can find info about the other bourbons made at Buffalo Trace on the Sazerac web site. Buffalo Trace is intended to be the company's flagship bourbon, hence the distillery also bears its name.

A Japanese company, Takara Shuzo, is in there somewhere, but I'm not sure exactly where they fit in.

Any wealthy and beautiful women involved are just going through you to get to me.

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://cowdery.home.netcom.com>--Chuck Cowdery</A>

[BERNCOW]

After your first tour at Buffalo Trace, make sure you sign-up for the hard-hat tour. I was the one only one who had signed-up for the hard-hat tour that day, so I had a wonderful one-on-one personal tour of just about every corner of Buffalo Trace. Best afternoon that I had for months and months.

[hookfinger]

I too took the distillery tour this year for the 1st time. I agree they didn't show much, but since the whiskey was not running there wasn't alot to see. I was told to make arrangements for the hard hat tour in the spring, it would be quite a bit more interesting. This something I fully intend to do, since this spirit has proven that it can easily hang in there with the older, established brands.

[Ken Weber]

Please ask for the hard hat tour. I was a bit slow on Wednesday and one of our important bartender friends showed up from London. He took the regular tour, afterwards I took him behind the scenes. We visited the grainery, cookers, fermentation room, still-house, cistern room, regauge room, warehouse(s), Blanton's Bottling, etc. Going behind the scenes and asking operators questions is very enlightening.

Ken