In 2015, Kentucky distillery Buffalo Trace announced a major expansion to the tune of $1.2 billion dollars. Ten years later, that work is finally coming to an end, which is good news for fans of brands produced there like Pappy Van Winkle and W.L. Weller because production capacity at the distillery is said to have increased by about 150 percent.
Of course, those are extremely allocated Buffalo Trace whiskey brands, along with the likes of E.H. Taylor, Jr., George T. Stagg, and other members of the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. What this will probably really means is more of the eponymous Buffalo Trace Bourbon, and maybe Eagle Rare, Blanton’s, and bottom-shelf offerings like Benchmark. But according to a rep for the distillery, “Buffalo Trace will continue every year to increase production volumes of all of its brands.” So yes, there will be more Sazerac 18, but perhaps not that much more.
By the end of this month, Buffalo Trace will mark the filling its nine millionth barrel of whiskey, which is pretty astounding considering that there are just over 14 million barrels total aging in Kentucky. The distillery was producing 200,000 barrels of bourbon a year with 400 employees when the project began and is now filling 500,000 with double the amount of workers. That’s thanks to a new still house that was completed in 2022, eight new 95,000-gallon fermenters, a new boiler house, 19 new rickhouses for maturing barrels, and other less sexy things like new bottling operations, distribution center, and cookers.
Of course, this comes at a time when there is a bit of uncertainty about the future of American whiskey. Tequila sales have outpaced bourbon and rye here, although as we reported recently agave spirits appear to be heading into a slump. Overall, people are looking to buy lower priced expressions rather than unicorn bottles, a category to which Buffalo Trace is no stranger. (The aforementioned Pappy is produced at the distillery in partnership with the Van Winkle family, for example.) People are drinking less overall, especially compared to the amount of alcohol consumed during the height of of the pandemic, and even a major distillery like MGP recently announced that it was cutting back on whiskey production this year. There’s also the possible (and perhaps likely) incoming Trump tariffs, which could mean less American whiskey being sold overseas and higher prices here in the U.S. to make up for that.
This was an expensive bet for Buffalo Trace, but that’s the nature of the whiskey business. Distilleries are literally making a product that won’t be ready for years, sometimes more than a decade, and it’s impossible to tell what the market will be like that far in the future. We will keep you updated on this, as well as what other players in American whiskey are up to, as the year progresses.
