History
Records indicate that distilling started on the site that is now the Buffalo Trace Distillery sometime before 1773 by Hancock Lee, who died in 1776. The oldest building on the site, the Riverside house, was constructed in 1792 by Commodore Richard Taylor and is still standing today. The first true distillery was constructed in 1812 by Harrison Blanton. In 1870 the distillery was purchased by Edmund H. Taylor and given its first name, the O.F.C. Distillery. Taylor sold the distillery eight years later to George T. Stagg along with the Old Oscar Pepper Distillery. This second distillery was sold within the year to James Graham in order to add more land to the O.F.C. Distillery. In 1886, Stagg installed steam heating in the storage warehouses, the first climate controlled warehouse for aging whiskey in the nation.
In 1972 Gary Gayheart became the master distiller. After his retirement in 2005, he was succeeded by Harlen Wheatley.
In 2009 and 2010, the Buffalo Trace Oral History Project was conducted by the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.
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