Buffalo Trace Added a New E.H. Taylor Bourbon to its Lineup
Buffalo Trace is beloved by bourbon fans for the highly allocated and ever popular brands produced at the Kentucky distillery, including the Antique Collection, W.L. Weller, and, of course, Pappy Van Winkle (which is made in partnership with the Van Winkle family). Another sometimes overlooked but always dependable label is E.H. Taylor, Jr., and the news arrived today that Buffalo Trace is adding a new, high-end whiskey to that lineup in a throwback to bourbon made in the 19th century.
Like many other expressions in the E.H. Taylor range, the new Distiller’s Council is a bottled-in-bond bourbon; that means it’s at least 4years old, exactly 100 proof, and the product of one distillery and one distillation season (according to a rep for the brand, the whiskey is 15 years old). But that’s really where the similarities end. The inspiration for the whiskey dates back to 1996, when a bunch of bourbon luminaries got together at the distillery (back when it was still known as George T. Stagg) to discuss what they thought made good whiskey, particularly in the 19th century. That group (a.k.a. the Distiller’s Council) included names that are well known in the American whiskey world, like former master distiller Elmer T. Lee, warehouse supervisor Jimmy Johnson, current Buffalo Trace master distiller Harlen Wheatley, and executive chairman of Sazerac Mark Brown.
The point of this meeting was to determine what might have been in an old decanter of whiskey produced at the distillery, or at least pinpoint specific flavors that made it stand out from what was currently being produced—an exercise that would ultimately lead to the creation of the Antique Collection, according to Buffalo Trace bourbon archaeologist and lead archivist Nick Laracuente. But along the way, these gentlemen detoured in their conversation to discuss the whiskey being produced when Taylor himself was distilling. At the end of the discussion, Brown tasked Wheatley to work on some experiments in mashing, fermentation, and distillation, a task he knew would be difficult but possibly fruitful.
Twenty years later, what is known as “Bourbon Pompeii” was unearthed at Buffalo Trace during renovations, a relic of the O.F.C. Distillery from the 19th century, which has since been preserved. According to Laracuente, that discovery helped to verify what the Distiller’s Council had been discussing (sadly, most of them were deceased by then), and the distillery team pinpointed liquid they had aging that would be perfect for this release nearly a decade later. Colonel E.H. Taylor, Jr. Distiller’s Council is a bottled-in-bond bourbon, as mentioned earlier, that is made from a completely new mashbill instead of the distillery’s closely guarded mashbills 1 and 2, among several others—a first for the distillery in modern times. It comes in a vintage Grecian-style decanter (a throwback to Old Taylor bottles from the 1950s) that is housed inside a special box.
I was able to sample this new whiskey at a recent tasting at the Sazerac House in New Orleans, and it is indeed a very different animal from everything else in the E.H. Taylor lineup. The whiskey is much less sweet than other bourbons in that portfolio, with drying tannic notes complemented by red berries and cherry, followed by some menthol and a bit of grass on the finish. This is a unique whiskey with a point—in other words, it’s truly something different and not just a retread of other E.H. Taylor expressions. But, as you might expect from Buffalo Trace, it’s going to be very hard to find a bottle. The SRP is listed at $1,500, but it’s already selling for well above that on the secondary market. Start checking local specialty retailers and whiskey websites this month if you’d like to try for yourself, and you might just get lucky.
