Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/91577
UP Up Front with Harlen Wheatley of Buffalo Trace story and photos by Fred Minnick Surrounded by hundreds of bourbon barrels aging 17 different brands, Master Distiller Harlen Wheatley noses a fresh pour of Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. "Because, that's what I always do: drink bourbon in the warehouse," Wheatley jokes, raising his glass toward the camera. Yes, it's true that his job requires him to occasionally taste whiskey outside of his award-fi lled offi ce, and he gets a kick out of making light of the irony of the situation. But you'll not fi nd the Master Distiller joking about the shoes he has to fi ll. "We have a lot of history here," Wheatley says. The Legacy Located in the Kentucky River Valley, where the wind fl ow and circulation make perfect conditions for aging bourbon, the distillery site was fi rst used by Harrison Blanton in 1812. Blanton made whiskey, poured it into barrels and rolled it to the Kentucky River just behind his warehouse to ship to New Orleans. By 1850, New Orleans' Sazerac Coffee House was purchasing the distillery's rye whiskey. Since then, the location has been making world-class whiskey, never compromising quality or tradition. Wheatley is the distillery's sixth Master Distiller since the Civil War and is carrying on the experimental tradition of former Master Distillers E.H. Taylor, who patented climate control barrel aging warehouses in the 1870s; George T. Stagg, whose Warehouses B and C still stand; and Elmer T. Lee, who created the bourbon industry's fi rst single barrel product in 1984 under the Blanton's Single Barrel label. With a horse crown- ing the bottle, the Blanton's Single Barrel brought $50 a bottle, an unthinkable price for the less expensive category. "Now every- body's doing it," Wheatley says of today's higher-priced single barrel products. So that's the legacy Wheatley has to live up to: 200 years of modernization in whiskey making and product innovation. And he's doing just fi ne, building his own legacy. Wheatley's Great Experiment Still a relatively new product, Buffalo Trace Bourbon was launched in 1999 and named for the buffalo that once crossed the Kentucky River. Although the distillery's success was legendary, it faced a branding issue until it was renamed Buffalo Trace. "We didn't have a big brand name to get behind until Buffalo Trace," Wheatley says. When Buffalo Trace fi rst launched, Wheatley 6 / the tasting panel / november 2012