Buffalo Trace Distillery racks up awards amid construction on $1.2 billion expansion

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WDRB) -- In the bourbon world, it's akin to Alabama in college football.

Buffalo Trace Distillery has many of the top players, and it keeps winning titles. It just won Whisky Magazine Distillery of the Year and the same title from the prestigious 2020 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Many familiar, coveted and hard-to-find bourbons are made by the team operating the historic distillery on the outskirts of Frankfort. Pappy Van Winkle, Weller, Blanton's, Eagle Rare, Elmer T. Lee, Stagg, E. H. Taylor, Thomas Handy and more come from Buffalo Trace.

"There's probably 100 different processes that go into making the taste profile," Master Distiller Harlen Wheatley said.

The demand for what Buffalo Trace produces is so high that parent company Sazerac is in the midst of a $1.2 billion expansion that will finish in about four years. To put that into perspective, the expansion will cost more than the new VA Hospital in Louisville and the Lincoln Bridge and Kennedy Exchange project in downtown Louisville.

Storage warehouses go up every three or four months with a capacity of nearly 60,000 barrels.

"We're breaking records every year, so we're putting away as many barrels as we can," Wheatley said. "We're running 24/7."

Despite all the expansion, which will double production to about a half million barrels a year, there's no guarantee the highly regarded bourbons will be any easier to find.

"Really we haven't even scratched the markets overseas yet to speak of," said Barry Karderi, who oversees the expansion. "I think there's a lot of growth for American whiskey for American bourbon for overseas markets."

Karderi thinks by the time the current expansion is finished, another one might be needed.

Buffalo Trace expects about 300,000 visitors a year. That's why the distillery expanded its visitors center to 35,000 square feet.

Every day, a different signature bourbon goes on the shelves for visitors to buy, with a limit of one per customer. One employee estimated 90% of those visitors come from out of state.

"The demand is out there and the demand has been there for quite some time," Barry Kaderi said. "We don't have a crystal ball. We should've probably done this many years ago just to keep up."

Buffalo Trace doesn't have a crystal ball, but it does have more than 100 top awards over the past 20 years, dominating sort of like the Crimson Tide and showing no signs of slowing down.