The Visitor Centre today is ... Buffalo Trace Distillery
Updated: Aug 12
Buffalo Trace Distillery: the oldest continuously operating distillery in the United States. A brilliant blend of bourbon and history.
Updated 2026
Every June, bourbon lovers raise a glass to America's "Native Spirit" for National Bourbon Day. Not that Kentucky needs much of an excuse to celebrate bourbon. Around 95% of the world's supply is produced in the state, and following the Kentucky Bourbon Trail has become almost as much a part of visiting Kentucky as horses and bluegrass.
Buffalo Trace was always going to be high on our list.
It's my son's favourite bourbon for an Old Fashioned, so this was one distillery where we already had a family connection before we'd even arrived. We'd booked months ahead and, after spending the morning at Bulleit, arrived in Frankfort ready to discover why Buffalo Trace has become one of the biggest names in American whiskey.
There is certainly plenty of history to discover. Distilling on this site beside the Kentucky River can be traced back to the 18th century. The distillery has survived fires, floods, Prohibition and the changing fortunes of American whiskey, while its warehouses are home to everything from Buffalo Trace and E.H. Taylor to some of the most sought-after bourbons in the world.
But years later, mention Buffalo Trace in our house and I don't immediately think of Pappy Van Winkle, historic warehouses or even the bourbon.
I think of David, his magnificent moustache and a squirrel.
Some visitor experiences stay with you because of an extraordinary building, a beautifully designed exhibition or something fascinating you learn along the way. Others stay with you because you happened to get exactly the right guide on exactly the right day. At Buffalo Trace, we hit the jackpot.
Visiting the Buffalo Trace Distillery: What to Expect
The Buffalo Trace Distillery brand history
Before we get to the bourbon, we need to explain the name, because Buffalo Trace wasn't dreamt up by a marketing department looking for something suitably American.
Long before there were roads through Kentucky, huge herds of bison travelled across the landscape in search of salt and grazing, gradually creating pathways known as traces. Native Americans used the routes, followed later by settlers, traders and stagecoaches.
As more people travelled along them, inns, taverns and businesses appeared. An early transport network, really, just without the service stations and bad coffee.
One of those routes passed through this part of Kentucky.
Leestown was established beside the Kentucky River in 1775, and whiskey was being made in the area in those early years. By 1792, when Kentucky became America's 15th state, Commodore Richard Taylor had built a stone house on the property. It's still there today.
The distillery story becomes rather easier to follow from the mid-19th century. Daniel Swigert developed a small distillery here in 1858, before Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor Jr. bought it in 1870. You'll come across Taylor's name a lot if you spend any time exploring Kentucky bourbon. He is often referred to as the 'Father of the Modern Bourbon Industry'.
He was a banker, politician and businessman as well as a distiller, and renamed the operation O.F.C. Distillery (Old Fire Copper) after the wood-fired copper stills he believed made the best whiskey. Remember the name - as I'll tell you all about it later in the article.
He then spent more than $70,000 developing it, a small fortune at the time, with the ambition of creating his model distillery. Unfortunately, spending a small fortune does rather depend on having one. Taylor ran into financial difficulties and in 1878 the distillery was bought by George T. Stagg, a successful whiskey salesman who had already been doing business with him.
Taylor initially stayed on to oversee operations, although the two men eventually went their separate ways.
It's worth remembering both names, because you'll meet them again on the bottles.
The distillery itself wasn't having a particularly quiet time either. In 1882 it was struck by lightning and badly damaged by fire. It was rebuilt almost immediately, bigger and grander than before. Warehouse C followed in 1885 and, a year later, the distillery became the first to use steam heating in its warehouses, allowing greater control over the ageing process during cold Kentucky winters. It's still used to this day.
After Stagg bowed out of the business, in 1897, a 16-year-old Albert B. Blanton arrived as an office boy. He worked his way through the company, becoming president in 1921. By then the operation had become the George T. Stagg Distillery and America was one year into Prohibition.
Most distilleries were forced to close, but this one was permitted to bottle whiskey for medicinal purposes and was later among the very small number allowed to make new whiskey. I'm sure plenty of people suddenly discovered ailments they hadn't previously noticed that the hard stuff was the cure for.
When Prohibition ended in 1933, only four Kentucky distilleries were capable of producing whiskey. This was one of them.
Blanton went on to steer the business through the Great Flood of 1937 and the Second World War, and during his time the site grew from 44 buildings to 144.
His name became much better known to bourbon drinkers in 1984, when Blanton's was launched. It is generally credited as the first commercially marketed single-barrel bourbon and helped kick-start the premium bourbon category that we know today.
He retired in 1943, but remained an advisor until his death in 1959.
After several changes of ownership, the distillery was bought by Sazerac in 1992. Seven years later it became Buffalo Trace Distillery and its new flagship Buffalo Trace bourbon was launched in August 1999.
The distillery was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2003. Remarkably, this isn't a museum piece either. It's still a working distillery and has continued to grow around those historic buildings.
And grow it certainly has.
As bourbon's popularity took off during the 2010s, Buffalo Trace found itself with the rather nice problem of not being able to make enough of it. In 2016, the distillery announced a $200 million expansion programme. Two years later, that investment had grown into a remarkable $1.2 billion programme, covering production, barrel storage and the visitor experience across a site that now stretches to around 400 acres.
The major expansion programme is now complete. It included a new stillhouse, additional warehouses and production facilities, with two enormous column stills standing 40 feet tall and 84 inches wide. Production runs around the clock, with capacity to fill more than 200,000 barrels a year.
That's an awful lot of bourbon.
And it isn't all Buffalo Trace. The distillery produces more than 15 bourbons and rye whiskies, including Eagle Rare, Weller, Blanton's and E.H. Taylor Jr. There's also an experimental warehouse, which gives the team the chance to play around with variables such as temperature, light, airflow and humidity to see what happens to the whiskey as it ages.
And it's not just bourbon production that's grown. The number of people wanting to see where it's made has shot up too. In January 2025, Buffalo Trace master distiller Harlen Wheatley told WDRB that 2024 was a “record-breaking” year with more than 600,000 visitors, making it Kentucky's biggest bourbon tourism attraction.
To put that into perspective, the entire Kentucky Bourbon Trail recorded around 2.7 million visits in 2024. Bourbon tourism really is flying high in Frankfort.
Buffalo Trace has also escaped the confines of the drinks cabinet. It's a favourite with bartenders and has popped up across popular culture, from books and songs to television programmes such as Yellowstone. The extraordinary theft of Pappy Van Winkle and other whiskey from the distillery even became the subject of an episode of the Netflix documentary series Heist.
Buffalo Trace Distillery on tour
Of course, not everyone can make it to Kentucky. So in 2025, Buffalo Trace did something rather interesting: instead of trying to persuade more people to come to the distillery, it took the distillery experience to them.
Buffalo Trace Distillery On Tour launched as a travelling tasting experience, visiting St. Louis, Kansas City, Jacksonville and Tampa. Guests were taken through a 90-minute guided tasting of four whiskies, accompanied by stories about the distillery, its history and the people behind its brands. There was even city-specific barware available to buy.
As someone who spends rather a lot of time travelling to visitor centres, I find the idea of the visitor centre travelling to the visitor rather appealing.
More importantly, it wasn't a one-off. Buffalo Trace brought On Tour back for 2026, this time visiting Branson, Kansas City, Grapevine in Texas and Denver.
“We have long sought to bring our story to those who cannot, or have not yet, visited our Distillery. For the first time, Buffalo Trace Distillery On Tour allows us to meet our fans where they are to share our history, craftsmanship, and award-winning whiskies. ” (Andrew Duncan, Global Brand Director at Buffalo Trace)
Buffalo Trace London
And if that isn't enough, Buffalo Trace opened their first visitor experience outside the US in May 2024. The Buffalo Trace Distillery, London is a 2,000-square-foot-space, and includes a tasting room and retail space, all just a few steps from the ever popular Covent Garden. I've had the pleasure of visiting that too.
The 2025 Buffalo Trace Flood
Buffalo Trace's location beside the Kentucky River has been fundamental to its history, but occasionally the river reminds everyone who's in charge.
In April 2025, historic flooding submerged much of the distillery, with the Kentucky River rising to more than 48 feet. Production stopped, buildings across the historic campus were affected and the visitor centre ended up with around three feet of water inside.
The recovery was remarkably quick. Shipping restarted almost immediately, bottling followed, and visitors were initially welcomed back through a makeshift shop and modified tasting experience while repairs continued. By August, normal tours, tastings and shopping had resumed.
For a distillery that has already survived fire, Prohibition, tornadoes and previous floods, it became yet another chapter in a rather extraordinary survival story.
What is Bourbon?
Bourbon is one of the most regulated spirits in the world. All bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon.
Bourbon can only be produced in America, though not just in Kentucky, as many people think, and new bourbon distilleries are popping up across the country all the time.
It is a fermented grain spirit.
In order to be classified as bourbon, a whiskey needs to be distilled from a mixture of grains, or mash, that is made up of at least 51% corn. It is this corn that gives bourbon its sweet flavour.
The mash must be distilled to no more than 160 proof (80% abv).
The distillate must be aged in charred new oak containers at 125 proof (62.5% abv) or less. Note that this does not strictly mention barrels, though what else you'd be using I don't know.
Before bottling, bourbon is filtered and diluted down to no less than 80 proof (40% abv).
There is no minimum limit to the length of aging, unlike Scotch. The exception is straight bourbon, which has a minimum aging requirement of 2 years. In addition, any bourbon aged less than 4 years must include an age statement on its label. Bottled-in-Bond must be aged for at least 4 years. Bourbon aged for less than 3 years cannot be classed as whiskey in the EU.
Anything labelled Kentucky Bourbon must be distilled and aged in Kentucky.
There are a plethora of other rules, but those are the basics.
Did E.H. Taylor invent whiskey tourism?
Glenfiddich in Scotland is generally credited with being the first distillery to open a visitor centre for tourists, back in 1969. But I think someone in Kentucky deserves rather more credit in the history of whiskey tourism. And we've already met him.
In the late 1800s, Colonel E.H. Taylor Jr. created his Old Taylor Distillery to look more like a medieval European castle than an industrial whiskey plant. He surrounded it with landscaped grounds, a classical spring house, walking routes and a sunken garden, encouraging tourists and picnickers to come and spend time there.
Visitors could tour the distillery and even went away with complimentary whiskey.
Sounds suspiciously like a visitor experience to me.
Old Taylor eventually passed through several owners before being abandoned in 1972. Thankfully, the extraordinary castle survived and, since 2014 is known as Castle & Key Distillery.
Buffalo Trace - A distillery that wears its history well
Buffalo Trace is a National Historic Landmark, and rather than finding one historic building preserved amongst lots of shiny new ones, you wander through a collection of red-brick warehouses and production buildings from different periods of the distillery's development.
It's a bit like walking through an architectural timeline of American whiskey.
At the heart of the site is a historic group of buildings dating from the late 18th to the early 20th century. The Old Taylor House dates back to 1792, while Warehouses A and B were built in 1881, the Dickel Building in 1883 and Warehouse C in 1885.
What I particularly enjoyed was seeing how the buildings changed as the distillery grew. This isn't a historic distillery frozen at one convenient point in time. Buildings have been added, adapted and reused as the business, technology and scale of bourbon production have changed.
Then there are the homes.
The Blanton family homestead, known as The Beeches, dates from 1818 and was acquired by Buffalo Trace in 2004. It's an attractive building, but its history isn't entirely comfortable. The Blanton family owned enslaved people, a reminder that the history of Kentucky bourbon also sits within the much more complicated social history of the American South.
Another former home, Stony Point, was built for Albert B. Blanton in 1934 and now sits amongst the distillery's gardens and bird sanctuary.
The grounds have developed into a Level II Accredited Arboretum, and Buffalo Trace even offers a tour concentrating on the gardens before, naturally, finishing with a whiskey tasting.
I rather like the idea that you can visit a bourbon distillery and come away talking about trees.
Towering over everything is the George T. Stagg Water Tower. At more than 163 feet tall, with capacity for 150,000 gallons of water, it's difficult to miss and has become as much a part of the Buffalo Trace skyline as the warehouses themselves.
Following E.H. Taylor around Buffalo Trace
Taylor's influence on the site is important enough that Buffalo Trace introduced an Old Taylor Tour in 2017.
It includes the Old Taylor House and the remains of Taylor's original O.F.C. distillery, rediscovered during construction work and rather wonderfully nicknamed “Bourbon Pompeii.” Visitors also get to explore the relationship, and eventual falling out between Taylor and George T. Stagg.
Sadly, the tour was full when we visited, which is one of the few things I would change if I went back.
The interpretation inside the Old Taylor House was created by local company Joanna Hay Productions, using exhibition panels, graphics and video to tell Taylor's story and explain some of the science behind bourbon.
Given my fascination with the man who may have been encouraging whiskey tourism almost a century before Glenfiddich opened its visitor centre, I definitely have unfinished business here.
From Warehouse V to Warehouse X
Two of my favourite buildings couldn't be more different.
Warehouse V is tiny. In fact, Buffalo Trace describes it as the world's smallest bonded barrel warehouse. Built in 1953, it has become the ceremonial home for the distillery's millionth-barrel milestones.
When Buffalo Trace reaches another million barrels, the milestone barrel is signed and rolled into Warehouse V for safekeeping. The latest, its nine-millionth barrel, was filled on 29 September 2025.
A few minutes away, Warehouse X couldn't be more different.
Built following tornado damage to Warehouse C in 2006, this is effectively a bourbon laboratory disguised as a warehouse. Five chambers allow the distillery to investigate what happens when you alter variables including temperature, humidity, airflow and natural light during maturation.
The results help inform Buffalo Trace's Experimental Collection and its understanding of how bourbon ages.
You can stand beside buildings that have been making whiskey for generations and then walk around the corner to find people deliberately questioning whether they've been doing it the best way.
Why Isn't Buffalo Trace on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail?
One thing that might surprise you is that Buffalo Trace isn't actually part of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.
The Kentucky Bourbon Trail was launched by the Kentucky Distillers' Association (KDA) in 1999, just as American whiskey was beginning its remarkable resurgence. What started as a way of encouraging people to visit Kentucky's distilleries has grown into a tourism powerhouse, recording more than 2.7 million visits in 2024.
We've followed plenty of it ourselves, collecting stamps in our Bourbon Trail passports as we've travelled around Kentucky. Sadly, the stamps have now gone digital. I know it's more practical, but it's nowhere near as satisfying as coming home with a battered passport full of actual stamps.
But you won't get a Buffalo Trace one.
In 2009, Sazerac withdrew Buffalo Trace and Barton 1792 from the Kentucky Distillers' Association following a dispute involving the use of the phrase “Kentucky Bourbon Trail.” As the KDA owns the trademark, leaving the association also meant leaving the official trail.
It doesn't appear to have done Buffalo Trace much harm. We certainly didn't need a passport stamp to persuade us to go.
The Buffalo Trace Distillery Tour
On the edge of Frankfort, Kentucky's state capital, Buffalo Trace sits at the end of a tree-lined drive about a quarter of a mile long. As you drive towards it, you start getting glimpses of the historic site and its wonderful collection of red-brick industrial buildings. After wanting to visit for years, I was already getting rather excited.
We arrived at 2pm, having spent the morning at Bulleit Distillery, about half an hour away in Shelbyville. We'd booked three months in advance, as we had with all our Kentucky distillery tours on this trip from Scotland, and even then we couldn't get on everything we wanted.
It was an extremely hot July day and we joined 22 guests of all ages, from different parts of the US and with very different levels of bourbon knowledge. We were the only ones from overseas, which seemed to make us something of a novelty, and we were made to feel very special indeed.
We only had time for the standard Trace Tour, which runs hourly and takes around 75 minutes, finishing with the all-important tasting. We entered through the renovated historic Freehouse, where a huge floor graphic gave us our first idea of just how big the whole operation is, before heading into the expanded 33,000-square-foot visitor centre.
Then we met David. We hit the jackpot. Ten years at the distillery, a natural storyteller, a wicked sense of humour and a truly magnificent set of whiskers, he joked that he had more than 400 hours of bourbon wisdom ready to pour into our brains. Within a few minutes, I knew this was going to be fun.
When we visited, Buffalo Trace's enormous expansion programme was still very much a work in progress. We were seeing it all happen around us. David talked us through how the distillery had grown and what all those plans would eventually deliver. He told us they were filling enough barrels to fill another warehouse every three to four months, around 58,800 barrels at a time, with the aim of eventually having a whopping 3.5 million barrels sleeping in the Kentucky countryside.
The Trace Tour is really aimed at the casual visitor and bourbon drinker than someone who already knows their mash bills from their bung holes. If you really want to get behind the scenes, the Hard Hat Tour gets into the nuts and bolts of production, from grain delivery through to distillation.
That's the one I would have chosen, but it was already full and we couldn't squeeze another day into our schedule. Next time. There is far too much here for one visit anyway.
"What's bourbon? Bourbon is magic." (David, Tour guide Buffalo Trace)
Now, a Kentucky summer is no place for a menopausal woman from Scotland, so I was extremely grateful when David found us some shade among the historic buildings and launched into the basics of bourbon, what makes it different from other whiskeys and the rules that govern it.
He pointed out the new stillhouse, still tucked behind construction equipment and due to go online just 60 days after our visit. As we wandered around the distillery, he mixed the practical stuff, milling, pressure cooking and ageing, with stories of Prohibition, medicinal whiskey, rectifying and the history behind some of the brand names.
Best of all, we could ask him absolutely anything. Which, of course, we did.
Then, just as the heat was starting to get the better of us and attention was beginning to wander, David suddenly shouted:
"Squirrel!"
Twenty-two heads immediately turned to look across the yard.
There was no squirrel.
We looked at the empty yard, then at David, then at each other, slightly bewildered.
He'd got our attention back.
Years later, I only have to hear someone shout "squirrel" and I'm back at Buffalo Trace, standing in the Kentucky heat with David and his magnificent moustache.
Sometimes it's the smallest things you remember from a tour.
There was plenty of detail, but David had a knack for explaining it using things everyone could relate to, from teabags and home cooking to children. Nobody needed to know much about bourbon before they arrived.
One of the best examples was Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year Old, the oldest bourbon in the Van Winkle range and one of the most sought-after whiskies in the world. A bottle in the UK can sell for thousands of pounds, but David helped us understand some of the economics behind that extraordinary price.
A barrel starts with around 53 gallons of spirit, but after 23 years of Kentucky summers and winters, David told us they might retrieve just three to five gallons. The rest has disappeared as the wonderfully named "angel's share".
And for all those years, that barrel has needed somewhere to sit.
There is the warehouse space, the people looking after it, insurance, tax and all the other costs involved in storing something for more than two decades, with no guarantee of exactly what you'll have left at the end. It was the first distillery where I felt someone had properly explained the business of ageing whiskey, rather than simply telling us that older meant more expensive.
After all that talk of rare bottles and eye-watering prices, David also had some excellent advice for dealing with whiskey snobbery.
"The world's best bourbon...is the one you like. Stay humble and blind taste everything." (David, Buffalo Trace)
Most of the tour group, all from the US, we were surprised to discover, had little to no knowledge of bourbon regulation, and definitely even less knowledge of whiskey, other than what is made in the US. David explained briefly the rules of Irish, Scotch and Japanese whiskey, before suddenly a secret door in the bookcase opened, and we were ushered through to the barrel storage, as if we were entering bourbon Narnia.
We learned how the barrels are stored and labelled, right down to the system used to find an individual barrel amongst the thousands sitting in the warehouses. Buffalo Trace uses Cartesian coordinates to pinpoint exactly where each one is stored. David even explained how an algorithm helps predict when a bourbon might be reaching its peak, before testing and, of course, plenty of tasting in the lab decides whether it's actually ready.
Even the barcodes got a mention. I've visited plenty of distilleries and nobody else has ever talked to us about those. It's the little details that count.
At any one time, Buffalo Trace has around 23,000 experimental barrels ageing away, and we got to see some of them. David also took us properly into the detail of how the barrels themselves are made, which I found fascinating.
Buffalo Trace uses a No. 4 char, giving the inside of each barrel a 55-second blast over a gas flame. By this point in our Kentucky trip, we'd started noticing the different char levels used at every distillery we visited. Once you start looking at these things, there's no going back.
Most of the barrels come from Kentucky or Missouri, and Buffalo Trace also has a cooperage in London, the one in Kentucky, not the UK! Every barrel is made by hand and, according to David, an experienced cooper can raise one in about 90 seconds.
Naturally, he then suggested we should go and watch them being made.
We didn't have time on this trip, but a proper cooperage tour is firmly on the list for next time.
My only disappointment was that we didn't actually see much bourbon being made. The Trace Tour doesn't take you into the stillhouse or mash room, so if, like me, you enjoy seeing the nuts and bolts of production, you'll need to book one of the more in-depth tours. As Buffalo Trace tours are complimentary, upgrading isn't exactly a hardship, although you'll need to book well ahead.
On a practical note, the Trace Tour was also accessible, with lifts taking visitors up to the newer tasting areas.
The final flourish was a tutored tasting, with the ever-animated David leading us into one of the private tasting rooms. Buffalo Trace went ahead with plans to expand its visitor and event spaces in 2020, with the new tasting rooms sitting alongside the Giants of Bourbon Hall, which can also be hired for private events.
I was slightly disappointed to find branded plastic tasting cups rather than proper glassware. For me, plastic just doesn't do a good bourbon justice. You can't really appreciate the colour, aromas or those lovely legs running down the inside of the glass when you give it a swirl. Perhaps I'm becoming one of those whiskey snobs David had warned us about.
Thankfully, what was in the cups made up for it.
Our tasting included Wheatley Vodka, root beer and Bourbon Cream, followed by Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare and Colonel E.H. Taylor. The exact line-up can vary depending on availability, with other Buffalo Trace names such as Blanton's, Sazerac Rye and W.L. Weller sometimes making an appearance.
As we were the only non Americans on the tour, David enjoyed explaining to the group the differences between Scotch and bourbon, using us to add information, especially regarding differences in weather and culture. We felt like expert witnesses.
We started with Wheatley Vodka, created and named after master distiller Harlen Wheatley. It is distilled an impressive 10 times, triple filtered and bottled at 82 proof, and we can buy it in the UK for £24 online and it gets great reviews. The brand are very proud of it. It is lethally smooth and easy drinking.
Working through the tastings we got to Eagle Rare, which we can now buy back home for £38 in our local supermarket or online. It is 10 years old, dry and smooth, bottled at 90 proof/45% ABV.
Our favourite was Colonel E.H. Taylor, aged in warehouse C and bottled in bond, which we have recently found online in the UK for £100. At 50% abv we found it heavy on the caramel and apples, like a tarte tatin on the nose, with vanilla ice cream on the finish. We bagged one for sale in the UK to add to our collection and it was the perfect Father's Day treat for my husband.
We moved on to the root beer, something we don't regularly drink back home. My husband loved it but I wasn't a fan. Next up was the Bourbon Cream, another one we can get in Scotland for £18. After a small sip we were instructed to make a root beer float, mixing the root beer with the bourbon cream, and for added flavour we could take a bite of the candy, a bourbon ball, made locally by Rebecca Ruth. The chocolates were delicious and although we purchased a box in the shop to bring home, they never made the plane! We scoffed them that night, with a bourbon or two of course.
With everyone asking whether the E.H. Taylor we'd just tasted was available in the shop, only to be disappointed, David explained the complexities of America's three-tier alcohol distribution system. To those of us visiting from the UK, it sounded completely bonkers.
In simple terms, producers generally can't just make a bottle of bourbon and put it straight onto the shelf in their own shop. Alcohol passes through a regulated system involving producers, distributors and retailers, with state laws adding another layer of complexity. Even selling your own bourbon at the place where it was made isn't necessarily as straightforward as you might imagine.
Crazy.
We realised then that we'd probably be leaving Buffalo Trace with memories rather than bottles.
Thankfully, we'd collected plenty of those.
The tour had been unscripted and occasionally frenetic, but that was part of its charm. David packed in tonnes of information without ever making it feel like a lecture, adapting as he went to a group with completely different levels of bourbon knowledge. I'm sure not every guide is going to have his depth of knowledge, and I suspect he'd relish the extra time on one of the longer tours to get into even more detail.
We certainly weren't in any hurry to leave. We stayed behind afterwards swapping stories about distilleries he'd visited in Ireland and Scotland, and later emailed him a list of a few Scottish ones we thought he should try on his next trip.
And years later, we're still talking about him.
And squirrels.
What to do after the tour?
After the tour you're free to wander the site. Don't underestimate the walking here though, as the site is massive. We spent an hour after the tour further exploring the buildings, many of which have plaques on them telling you about their history. Just come in comfy shoes.
What to eat at Buffalo Trace Distillery - John G. Carlisle Cafe
For a distillery the size and reputation of Buffalo Trace, it was a surprise that they didn't offer a larger food spot when we visited. The Firehouse Sandwich Stop, in the original Firehouse building from the 1930s, served a light lunch which was pretty decent, but they were missing a trick I felt.
When I first wrote this article, I suggested that the brand could find a larger indoor space, to cater for guests in all weathers, that could offer bourbon themed menus, based on the history of the buildings. They must have been listening.
New for 2026 is the John G. Carlisle Cafe, Buffalo Trace's first permanent dining spot. It opened in May inside the historic 1935 Elmer T. Lee Clubhouse and serves lunch and cocktails from 11am to 3pm.
What I really like is that you don't need a tour ticket or reservation to visit. That's a bit of a game changer for Buffalo Trace. Tours can be notoriously difficult to get onto, but now someone passing through Frankfort can stop for lunch and a cocktail and get a little taste of Buffalo Trace without having planned their visit months in advance.
And there is so much they could do with it. I'd love to see a bourbon afternoon tea or a proper bourbon brunch, either before or after a tour. Not everything would need to contain bourbon either. Done well, it could give the non-bourbon drinker something to get excited about too, while the rest of us happily work our way through bourbon-glazed this and bourbon-infused that.
For me, that's when a brand home really starts to become somewhere you can spend a few hours rather than somewhere you simply arrive for your allotted tour and leave afterwards.
The images are giving me Magnolia Press vibes (the Waco, Texas cafe of the extremely popular HGTV star Joanna Gaines's Magnolia brand experience), which I visited a few years ago.
Buffalo Trace Distillery Shop
The retail space was large and simply furnished, filled with lots of varied items. Just don't expect racks of bourbon, as this is limited. When we visited there was no bourbon we couldn't buy at home and sadly none of the whiskey that we had enjoyed on the tasting.
If you do visit when there is an allocated bottle, arrive early, as they don't save them for tour guests, and be prepared to queue. Wait times in line have been known to be extremely long. It really is luck of the draw. And they don't ship out of the state. It's the law!
There was plenty of ginger beer and bourbon cream on offer though.
I appreciated the Christmas offerings here though. We have a travel themed tree in our sitting room every year, with a growing number of ornaments from our visits to brand homes all over the world. I bought one of the barrel baubles, made from recycled whisky barrel bungs.
But there was something for everyone here, from the sports fan to the dog lover, with baby bibs, cocktail kits, glassware, chess sets, clothing, watches, fudge, you name it.
Is a visit to the Buffalo Trace Distillery worth it?
Absolutely. And if you've made it this far, you'll have realised this is an unapologetically long guide. I loved it here.
Perhaps part of that comes from my own history. My journey into designing distilleries harks back to summers spent as a small child in my grandad's brewery, a wonderful old red-brick Victorian building. I've had a soft spot for industrial architecture ever since, so give me historic brick warehouses, old machinery, pipes, barrels and stories about the people who worked amongst them and I'm already happy.
The fact that you get so much at Buffalo Trace for free is remarkable. In our case, we also got an engaging, entertaining guide who delivered the brand history with humour and heaps of knowledge. And with tours covering everything from gardens and architecture to the nuts and bolts of bourbon production, there are plenty of reasons to come back.
There are frustrations. The limited releases we tasted were often impossible to buy, and after travelling all that way it was gutting to leave without one. We came home with memories, a Christmas bauble and some chocolates instead. Thankfully, we can find some Buffalo Trace releases back home in the UK. If you are lucky enough to visit on a day where these limited releases are available, then expect massive queues. But do consider queuing, as they're worth it. Everyone wants to get their hands on a Blanton or a Pappy.
What I really like about the visitor experience is how unfussy it is. There isn't lots of technical wizardry trying to compete for your attention. The historic buildings and the people telling their stories do most of the work.
That's not to say I wouldn't change things. More shade, covered or temperature-controlled stopping points and additional seating would make those hot Kentucky tours more comfortable for visitors and guides alike. On the standard tour, I'd also add some simple visual interpretation showing the production areas you don't get to see, such as the mash tuns and stills.
I'd jump at the chance to work with Sazerac on it.
The new John G. Carlisle Cafe is a great addition too. It gives visitors somewhere to linger before or after a tour, but more importantly opens Buffalo Trace hospitality to people who haven't managed to secure one. Come for lunch or a cocktail and you might just leave wanting to know more.
Our Buffalo Trace story didn't end when we drove out of Frankfort either. We came home talking about it, have recommended it countless times since and still keep an eye out for different releases back home. There are tours we didn't manage to do, buildings I still want to explore and plenty more bourbon to discover.
So we'll be back.
Proof that free can indeed be fabulous.
Plan your trip to the Buffalo Trace Distillery
Address
Buffalo Trace Distillery, 113 Great Buffalo Trace, Frankfort, KY 40601
Website: Buffalo Trace Distillery
Getting to the Buffalo Trace distillery
We were on a 3-week road trip from the UK, travelling from Atlanta to Detroit, so we came to Louisville by car, which was extremely easy. Having the car made visiting distilleries out of town for two days a breeze, but you can use tour companies that operate small tour buses for this if you don’t have a car at your disposal. The car did sit in the parking garage for 4 days, so it wasn’t the best use of the rental financially, but we appreciated the convenience.
Getting to Frankfort for Buffalo Trace was a breeze, an hour by car from Louisville with lovely scenery along the route.
How long was the visit?
We stayed for 3 hours and could have spent even longer here and would return if we lived closer to discover more.
Worth mentioning
Our tour was mostly outdoors, so it’s a good idea to come prepared with an umbrella or waterproof jacket and some water. In the summer it can get very hot, so wear a brimmed hat and definitely wear good walking shoes. It’s dog friendly too.
How much are tickets?
We always pay for our own tickets, though this time the tickets for all tours are free, and this was not part of any advertising.
There are 5 tours available and all need booked way ahead of time to avoid disappointment.
The Trace Tour, which we went on, lasts 75 minutes.
The Hard Hat Tour lasts 90 minutes.
The Old Taylor Tour lasts 75 minutes.
The Arboretum and Botanical Gardens Tour takes 75 minutes.
The National Historic Landmark Tour also lasts 90 minutes.
I'd go back tomorrow if I could and do a few tours in a day.
Opening times
It's always worth checking with the distillery for their current opening times, as they can vary.
Distillery and Gift Shop Hours are Mon-Sat 9:00am-5:00pm ET and Sunday 11:00am-5:00pm ET and they are closed Easter Sunday, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day.
Where we stayed for our visit to the Buffalo Trace distillery
Hotel options were pretty limited for a week in July 2022, peak tourist season and just after Independence Day in the US, and we wanted to feel more at home in Louisville, so booked an Airbnb in the historic Henry Clay building hosted by Ashlyn.
This was perfect for us, one bedroom, Wi-Fi, kitchen, aircon and a parking space, which was ideal for our hire car. Looking at the images on Airbnb, she seems to have revamped her apartment further. When we visited, we must mention that the city was extremely quiet, almost like a ghost town in places and certainly not everything opens all week. It can be tricky to find places for food on a Sunday, as even Subway was shut! There wasn’t a large supermarket in town that we could walk to and even bars at night were very quiet. We’re used to cities having more hustle and bustle and this will, no doubt, all change with even more visitors coming to the city. Say Hi to Ashlyn from us if you book in. We're not being paid to advertise her place, but we can recommend it and I wouldn't stay anywhere else.
What to see around the Buffalo Trace distillery
In Frankfort you're on the Kentucky Bourbon trail, so if you like your whiskey, you'll enjoy your stay. You can visit 2 or 3 distilleries a day and still not see them all in a weekend. You can read our report on what to do on and off the Bourbon here.
Castle & Key Distillery is only a 15 minute drive away and as I mentioned earlier, is directly linked to the history of Buffalo Trace. They have tonnes of once abandoned historic buildings to tour, on a site that was renovated over 4 years and reopened in 2018. With Kentucky’s first female Master Distiller since Prohibition, Marianne Eaves, the brand released Restoration Rye, their first aged spirit in December 2020.
Frankfort is the State capital and could be a picturesque pit stop, with breweries, wineries, museums, galleries, shops and a host of outdoor activities.
Kentucky is horse country, famously known for the Kentucky Derby and horse must check out nearby Lexington where many stables offer farm tours and experiences.
Louiseville is an hour away and has a few personal favourites of ours. The Frazier History Museum, located on Louisville’s “Museum Row” in the West Main District of downtown blends historic artefacts with educational exhibitions that bring you right up to date with Kentuckian culture.
And sports fans can check out our guide to the Louisville Slugger Museum, which we thoroughly enjoyed. Even if you're not into baseball, like us, I defy you not to enjoy this museum.
Further reading
Drink fans, if you liked this article then check out our guide to Jack Daniel's, The Black Sheep Brewery, Campari, Johnnie Walker Princes Street, Evan Williams, Coppercraft, Llanerch Vineyard, Empirical and White Castle Vineyard. More drink related visitor guides coming soon.
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I love writing my own reflections, diving into a brand's history, doing the research and looking at spaces through the eyes of a commercial interior designer. With over 30 years of working with customers, I also enjoy watching how guests interact with guides, displays and spaces. Everything I share is honest, personal and entirely human, not AI generated.
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Photographs: ©Julie White unless noted otherwise
Disclaimer - The views and opinions expressed are solely my own. I paid for the tours in full and any comments reflect my personal experiences on that day. Please drink responsibly. Please visit and garner your own thoughts and feel free to research the brand and the visitor centre in question.
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