The investment from parent company Sazerac, will help the distillery to expand its distilling operations over the next several years, in plans which include the building of 30 new barrel warehouses.
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| Buffalo Trace announces $200 million expansion plan |
Additional barrel warehouses have already taken shape, in the form of two recently acquired buildings adjacent to the distillery. Each of which are capable of holding 50,000 barrels of Buffalo Trace bourbon. The buildings had been sold off in the 1980s and used as office buildings after the collapse of the bourbon industry in the late 1970s.
As far as the current inventory of bourbon at Buffalo Trace Distillery is concerned, there are shortages across its portfolio of which include Eagle Rare, Blanton’s, Elmer T. Lee and W.L Weller, but things are marginally better than they were three years ago and they continue to improve.
Unlike most distilleries, Buffalo Trace now distributes its bourbons across the United States, to ensure every state receives a monthly allocation of its bourbon.
Commenting on the news, Kris Comstock, Brand Manager at Buffalo Trace Distillery, said: “We spread what we have around as best we can. In many instances, we are literally waiting for barrels to come of age since we aren’t willing to compromise on quality and taste.”
He went on to say: “Buffalo Trace Distillery would like to stress that while the bourbon shortages are prevalent in all of their brands, they speak only for themselves, not for the entire bourbon industry. This is not some marketing tactic to scare consumers to buy more, or something we are making up. We wish we had distilled more years ago. The shortage is a real problem and we get requests for more daily. Believe me, I wish we had more to sell too!”
Buffalo Trace recently announced that it has racked up more than 5,000 experimental whiskey barrels in its Kentucky warehouses, made using non-traditional grains, (rice and oats), various fill proofs, types of wood and barrel toasts.
It was also announced last week that their latest Experimental Collection release, utilised infrared light waves as part of an experiment to help learn how new and different flavours can be drawn from oak.
Posted by Steve Rush