Buffalo Trace

There were many similarities between this tour and Barton’s. Both are owned by Sazerac who keeps the tour and tasting free (and therefore can’t be included on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, as they require members to charge, unfortunately). Both offer multiple types of tours. Both were our first tour of the day and featured the best tour guides I had throughout the trip.

We arrived and made the short walk from the parking lot to the visitor center. The lot is pretty big and was getting very full by the time we left so I imagine it isn’t always as convenient as we found it. This was our first tour of the day and, as I’m a bit eager, we got there before the gift center opened. Thankfully this wasn’t a problem as I really enjoyed walking around and looking at the old buildings. This distillery had some of the beauty of Woodford Reserve and Maker’s Mark with the slightly more industrial feel of Jack Daniel’s. After the walk, we went inside to start our tour.

As with Amanda at Barton’s, I have to give the disclaimer that my experience was very much influenced by our guide, Freddie. His anecdotes and connection to the distillery through his family history added extra depth to the experience. His personable attitude made the fifteen of us on the tour feel comfortable and at ease. I can’t say enough about him.

As I said in the description, we took the Trace Tour which is less involved than some of the other offerings. It just worked better with our schedule. We got to see the grounds, hear some stories, and then went to a little room outside a rick house to learn a bit about the whiskey through visual displays. It wasn’t much, but I found this to be helpful in understanding the process and unique from other distilleries. We then walked through the rick house before heading to the bottling room.

The tasting continued in the same spirit as the tour. Freddie kept things light and fun. We rubbed white dog whisky on our hands to observe the way the smell changed as it dried (also similar to the Barton’s tour). Next, we sampled two out of four options (Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, a vodka, and the white dog). We finished with the chocolate/coffee liquor.

I would definitely visit Buffalo Trace again. You can’t beat free and with so many other tours, I know I’d get to see something different.