Buffalo Trace Just Made Bourbon History With This Futuristic 30-Year-Old Whiskey

The worst kept secret in Kentucky, is Buffalo Trace Distillery’s climate controlled warehouse P. When I was down at the distillery last summer, even though the temperature outside was close to 100 degrees, inside the warehouse it felt cool and comfortable. Why go through all of this trouble? Well, this high-tech warehouse will allow the company to age some of its barrels for decades and decades. 

Today, Buffalo Trace announced it was bottling one of these extra-old whiskeys: a 101-proof 30-year-old Eagle Rare Bourbon. This is the oldest whiskey ever to be released by Buffalo Trace and will no doubt become an instant collector’s item.

“Eagle Rare 30 is not simply about time, it is about what time can reveal,” said Buffalo Trace Distillery Master Distiller Harlen Wheatley in a prepared statement. “Aging whiskey in Kentucky comes with inherent challenges: evaporation increases and barrel influence intensifies, which can lead to overly dry or astringent characteristics in older bourbons. The environment within warehouse P allows us to manage those effects, softening the extraction and preserving the nuanced flavors that define exceptional ultra-aged bourbon.”

Over the next few years, Buffalo Trace will no doubt be releasing ever more of these ancient American whiskeys. In addition to bottling the 30-year-old, the company is also releasing an allotment of 25-year-old Eagle Rare, which was also aged in warehouse P.

While some distillers have been heating their warehouses for years, Buffalo Trace’s experiment goes above and beyond earlier attempts. Even though the whiskey aged in this space-age warehouse comply with all federal regulations, the jury is still out whether they will taste as good as whiskey aged in traditional style warehouses. Only time will tell. 

Eagle Rare 30 Tasting Notes

As you can imagine, after years of barrel aging the whiskey is a deep rich color. According to Wheatley, the whiskey has notes of baked cherry, brown sugar, caramel and honey on the nose. And on the palate it has notes of nuts, tobacco, oak and smoke.

Eagle Rare 30 Price & Availability

A limited number of bottles of this special whiskey will be released next month and has a suggested retail price of $12,500.