Growth for Buffalo Trace Distillery enters ‘final phase’ of expansion: Kentucky staple gains 2 new boilers

FRANKFORT, Ky. ( FOX 56 ) — Buffalo Trace Distillery continues to be both a tourism and economic hotspot, titles that are growing even more as the facility expands.

The Frankfort distillery recently welcomed two new boilers, marking the final phase of an expansion that is set to make the distillery even more of a Kentucky staple.

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“It’s an honor to be such a big part of Kentucky with not only bourbon but the economy we see in Frankfort and Franklin County,” said Tyler Adams, general manager. “People come in from all over the world, spending their dollars here. They choose to do that; they choose to come to Buffalo Trace, and while they’re here, they’re dining in the area and staying in the area. We know it has a big impact when we think about those over 600,000 visitors.”

Harlen Wheatley is the master distiller, meaning he’s also thrilled to see the place continue to grow.

“When we talk about doubling the size of the distillery, what we did was added on entire distillation capabilities. We added on another building; we doubled our fermenters.” Wheatley said.

Behind the scenes, Wheatley explained the process of getting the new fermenters in.

“What we’ve got going on is we’re adding eight more fermenters. We mimicked our design of our existing fermenters and they’re building it separately. They’re building the top of the tanks, and then they take that and they attach it to the tank after they build the tank, so they’ll set that on top and weld it all together,” Wheatley said.

Michael Ipsan from Northern Virginia made his first visit to the distillery Thursday. Ipsan said he’s been looking for a place to find high-quality bourbon, and he’s glad to know more of it will be made from this expansion.

“We started getting into bourbon and then we heard about Buffalo Trace. It’s hard to get at the ABC store that we have to get all our liquor from in Virginia. Every time It came on the shelves, we had to get as much as we could,” Ipsan said.

“There’s a lot of opportunity to see what’s been happening over the past few years. We really want to be able to produce enough bourbon for everyone so everyone can be able to enjoy Buffalo Trace,” Adams added.

This expansion is expected to be complete by the spring of 2025.

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