The Antique Collection
The complete Antique Collection, presented as one acquisition: rare, hand-selected whiskeys showcasing the artistry, patience and dedication of Buffalo Trace's master distillers, released once each fall and gone almost at once.
Taken with this collection? Note it when you meet your representative — allocations are reserved in your name.
Each whiskey in the set is bottled at barrel proof or near it, without chill filtration, from barrels the distillery sets aside as its oldest and most exceptional, resting in its historic warehouses. Six expressions make up the collection — George T. Stagg, William Larue Weller, Thomas H. Handy Sazerac, Eagle Rare 17 Year, Sazerac Rye 18 Year, and E.H. Taylor Bottled-in-Bond, added in 2025 as the first new constituent since 2006. Each honours a figure from the distillery’s past, and each changes character with every vintage.
To hold the full collection from a single year is the collector’s ambition in American whiskey — the set assembled as the distillery intended, before the bottles scatter.
George T. Stagg
Named for the man who led the old O.F.C. Distillery and to whom it was re-christened in 1904, George T. Stagg is drawn from barrels rested no less than fifteen years and bottled at barrel strength.
The collection is bottled at barrel proof or close to it, without chill filtration, and Stagg sits at the formidable end of that practice. Fifteen years in new charred oak at better than seventy per cent alcohol produces a whiskey of unusual density — one that rewards water, and patience, in roughly equal measure.
Lush toffee sweetness and dark chocolate lead, with vanilla, fudge, nougat and molasses beneath, and further notes of dates, tobacco, dark berries, spearmint and a trace of coffee.
- Part of
- The Antique Collection
- Distillery
- Buffalo Trace Distillery
- Category
- Kentucky Straight Bourbon
- Country
- United States
- Region
- Kentucky
- Age
- No less than 15 Years
- Cask Type
- New charred American oak
- ABV
- 71.4%
- Mash Bill
- Mash Bill #1
- Format
- 70cl
William Larue Weller
William Larue Weller founded his whiskey business in 1849. The bourbon bearing his name is built on a wheated mash bill, wheat standing in for rye, and is bottled uncut and unfiltered at barrel strength.
Wheat in place of rye softens the frame of a bourbon without thinning it, and at this strength the effect is a whiskey that arrives heavy and finishes sweet. No age is published for the expression — an omission the distillery has never explained — so the character, rather than the years, is the whole of what is claimed.
Caramel corn, new leather, plums, light toffee and pipe tobacco on the nose; marshmallow, salted almonds, nougat, figs and dates on the palate; a smooth, composed and flavourfully sweet finish.
- Part of
- The Antique Collection
- Distillery
- Buffalo Trace Distillery
- Category
- Kentucky Straight Bourbon
- Country
- United States
- Region
- Kentucky
- ABV
- 64%
- Mash Bill
- Wheated — wheat in place of rye
- Format
- 70cl
- Cask Type
- New charred American oak
Thomas H. Handy Sazerac
Named for the New Orleans bartender credited with first making the Sazerac cocktail with rye whiskey, Thomas H. Handy Sazerac is the collection’s straight rye, bottled uncut and unfiltered.
It is the youngest whiskey in the collection, and the one that most clearly shows rye’s own character rather than the oak’s — spice held forward, fruit behind it. The distillery publishes no strength for the expression, which is unusual even by the collection’s standards, so no figure is stated here.
Toffee, fig cake and candied fruit, followed by mint, cinnamon and clove, before a long, warm finish revealing allspice, coconut and nutmeg.
- Part of
- The Antique Collection
- Distillery
- Buffalo Trace Distillery
- Category
- Straight Rye
- Country
- United States
- Region
- Kentucky
- Format
- 70cl
Eagle Rare 17 Year Old
The Antique Collection’s expression of Eagle Rare, aged seventeen years — well beyond the decade that defines the marque — and bottled at 101 proof.
Where the standard Eagle Rare is defined by ten years, this one is given seventeen, and the extra time shows less as weight than as delicacy: the mid-palate turns dry and restrained rather than heavier. It has been part of the collection since the beginning and remains, for many collectors, its most approachable bottle.
An almost wine-like nose of almond, cigar box and cinnamon; a delicate, dry mid-palate of leather, vanilla and tobacco; a lingering finish of leather and toffee.
- Part of
- The Antique Collection
- Distillery
- Buffalo Trace Distillery
- Category
- Kentucky Straight Bourbon
- Country
- United States
- Region
- Kentucky
- Age
- 17 Years
- Cask Type
- New charred American oak
- ABV
- 50.5%
- Mash Bill
- Mash Bill #1
- Format
- 70cl
Sazerac Rye 18 Year Old
The collection’s older rye, matured eighteen years — an age very few ryes are permitted to reach, and one that turns the grain’s sharpness into something closer to resin.
Rye at this age is a rarer thing than bourbon at the same, and the whiskey shows it: the spice that defines a young rye has receded into oak, leather and molasses, with the pepper arriving only at the very end. It is the quietest bottle in the collection, and the one most often held back.
Very mature — oak, leather, molasses and allspice — before a long, warm finish preceded by mint, eucalyptus, cinnamon, vanilla and a lingering pepper.
- Part of
- The Antique Collection
- Distillery
- Buffalo Trace Distillery
- Category
- Kentucky Straight Rye
- Country
- United States
- Region
- Kentucky
- Age
- 18 Years
- ABV
- 47.5%
- Format
- 70cl
E.H. Taylor, Jr. Bottled in Bond
The first new addition to the Antique Collection since 2006. Aged fifteen years and four months, and hand-bottled at 100 proof to meet the Bottled-in-Bond standard that Colonel Taylor himself campaigned for.
The Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897 fixed what a whiskey had to be before it could claim the name: one distillery, one season, at least four years in a federally supervised warehouse, and exactly 100 proof. Taylor fought for it. More than a century later the expression bearing his name enters the collection at that precise strength — the only one of the six whose proof does not move from year to year.
Warm vanilla, seasoned oak, charred undertones and a drizzle of maple on the nose; balanced sweetness and baking spice over a gentle wood note; oak and vanilla resolving into soft caramel with a hint of cherry.
- Part of
- The Antique Collection
- Distillery
- Buffalo Trace Distillery
- Category
- Kentucky Straight Bourbon
- Country
- United States
- Region
- Kentucky
- Age
- 15 Years 4 Months
- Cask Type
- New charred American oak
- ABV
- 50%
- Mash Bill
- Mash Bill #1
- Format
- 70cl
Buffalo Trace Distillery
The distillery’s history begins in 1775, when Leestown was established on a bend of the Kentucky River at Frankfort — a crossing the buffalo had already chosen. Its name comes from those ancient pathways, the traces carved through the wilderness by migrating herds. Bourbon has been made on the same ground for more than two hundred years, which makes it, by its own account, the oldest continually operating distillery in America.
Discover Buffalo Trace Distillery →
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