Qualla: Buffalo Trace Distillery

Buffalo Trace Distillery: Introduction

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Craiglduncan, CC BY-SA 3.0. Long before bourbon had a name, American bison wore a trackway into the limestone bluffs where the Kentucky River bends through Franklin County. Settlers followed those buffalo traces to reach the interior, and in 1775, brothers Hancock and Willis Lee began distilling spirits on the very ground where the animals had crossed. Willis died the following year, but the copper stills kept working. Two and a half centuries later, they still have not stopped. Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky, now owned by the Sazerac Company, claims to be the oldest continuously operating distillery in the United States -- a place that outlasted the Revolution, the Civil War, and Prohibition by declaring its whiskey medicinal. Whether that claim edges out the rival Burks' Distillery, now home to Maker's Mark and listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest operating bourbon distillery, depends on how you count the years. Either way, the limestone-filtered water still flows and the barrels still age.

Read more: Buffalo Trace Distillery on Qualla

Image: Craiglduncan | CC BY-SA 3.0

Buffalo Trace Distillery: Copper, Fire, and a Changing Name

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kittugwiki, CC BY-SA 3.0. The first proper distillery building rose on the site in 1812, constructed by Harrison Blanton. In 1870, Edmund H. Taylor purchased the operation and christened it the Old Fire Copper Distillery -- the O.F.C. -- investing heavily in modern production methods that would set standa...

Read more: Buffalo Trace Distillery on Qualla

Image: Kittugwiki | CC BY-SA 3.0

Buffalo Trace Distillery: Surviving Prohibition with a Prescription Pad

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Acdixon, CC0. When Prohibition swept the nation in 1920, most distilleries shuttered their doors and watched their inventory evaporate -- sometimes literally, as barrels were seized or abandoned. Buffalo Trace was among a small handful granted federal permits to continue producing whiskey for ...

Read more: Buffalo Trace Distillery on Qualla

Image: Acdixon | CC0

Buffalo Trace Distillery: A Roster of American Originals

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jaimin Trivedi, CC BY-SA 4.0. The bourbon that flows from Buffalo Trace's warehouses today reads like a collector's wish list. The distillery produces its namesake Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon alongside Eagle Rare, Blanton's Single Barrel, the barrel-proof George T. Stagg, and the coveted W.L. Well...

Read more: Buffalo Trace Distillery on Qualla

Image: Jaimin Trivedi | CC BY-SA 4.0

Buffalo Trace Distillery: When the River Rose

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kaplansa, Public domain. In early April 2025, days of heavy rainfall dumped more than 15 inches on parts of central Kentucky, and the Kentucky River at Frankfort climbed to 48.24 feet -- the second-highest level in the distillery's two-century history. Significant portions of the campus went underwater. ...

Read more: Buffalo Trace Distillery on Qualla

Image: Kaplansa | Public domain