Buffalo Trace Antique Collection Master Data Sheet
This one is for the nerds. The true bourbon nerds. The folks who can’t wait to see the nitty gritty details in the annual Buffalo Trace Antique Collection each year. I’ve been keeping a master sheet that includes the press release (read: announcement) date, bottle specs going back over twenty years, and averaging things like percentage of evaporation in each year’s batch of bottles. I should preface this post by saying I am by no means a spreadsheet wizard, this was originally meant as a utilitarian data-tracking tool for myself, but after sharing with a few friends I was urged to make this a bit more public. If you’d like to get ahead of public shares like this, feel free to join me in Discord to join in on the 24/7 whiskey chatting, sharing, and banter.
Warehouse C at Buffalo Trace Distillery (photo: Buffalo Trace Distillery)
BTAC Master Data Sheet
First thing’s first, if you’re here to check out the sheet you can click the heading above to access the sheet, and I will place links throughout this post to keep things simple.
In this sheet I aimed to put together a resource that would make it easier for the whiskey nerd out there to track the releases year by year, cross-check proof for each batch, or simply track down the release letters that Buffalo Trace Distillery releases each year.
Cover Sheet
I have broken down the book to contain something of a cover page highlighting the announcement date, links to the press releases, and any highlights or major notables from that years BTAC release.
Bottle Breakdown
Each subsequent sheet within the book is dedicated to one of the bottles released:
- George T. Stagg
- Thomas H. Handy
- Sazerac 18
- William Larue Weller
- Eagle Rare 17
Simply swap between sheets via the tabs at the bottom to see the years of data which goes back to 2004 for brands like George T. Stagg (picture below).
Functions
Up until 2018, Buffalo Trace Distillery used to publish the number of barrels that went into each release as well as the percentage of evaporation in the entire batch. This allowed for a little back of the napkin math to figure the rough quantity of barrels–and ultimately bottles–produced each year.
Odds are good that folks reading a post this nerdy have seen something similar to this over at Breaking Bourbon as the great lads on that site used to do this math and share estimated BTAC bottle counts. BTAC releases from 2019 forward no longer contain barrel count information, but the evaporation is still shared, and I include a running average calculation in my sheet for those curious about details that ultimately don’t matter (but are a bit fun to check out).
I’ve used bold font to highlight anomalous stats such as above average evaporation, changes in proof, and age of each batch released. You can see a good number of these on the Eagle Rare 17 sheet (pictured below).
Buffalo Trace Distillery
Final thoughts…
Images courtesy of Buffalo Trace Distillery
Thank you for checking out this post, and I hope the data I’ve been compiling (and will continue to work on) ends up being a useful reference for you as you track down BTAC bottles of your own. I can only hope you open those bottles and share them with friends and family, because that’s really what great whiskey is for. Cheers!
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE BTAC MASTER DATA SHEET
Be sure to subscribe to the Whiskey Raiders Podcast to hear Jay and myself sip whiskey (and more) and share our first impressions, tasting notes, and perspectives on things like the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection and so much more.
The Bourbon Finder & Weekly Whiskey thanks Buffalo Trace Distillery for graciously providing us a sample of their product and/or the images used in this post. Being able to try new things in the whiskey space, without strings attached, is an opportunity we greatly appreciate. Per our review ethos, we provide objective reviews and commentary on media samples of spirits and products; remember, friends, these are the good old days of whiskey!
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