Taste Test: This 27-Year-Old Buffalo Trace Bourbon Defies Expectations

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Let’s get straight to the point: A this old shouldn’t be this good. Twenty-seven years in a barrel, through hot and humid Kentucky summers and icy cold winters, should turn a bourbon into a tannic oak bomb. Of course, this particular bourbon didn’t exactly suffer through those extremes. Instead, it spent a good deal of time in climate controlled experimental warehouse (and even more time in temperature-controlled warehouses), but still… after nearly three decades, this new Last Drop release completely defied my expectations.

The was founded in 2008 by spirits industry veterans Tom Jago and James Espey, and has released almost 40 different bottles of scotch, Cognac, Japanese whisky, rum, Irish , and yes, bourbon, since then. Each of these is supposed to be the literal last drops of liquid sourced from rare casks throughout the world. Sazerac acquired the company in 2016, which means that it has pretty easy access to whiskey produced at the Distillery now. But, of course, not just any whiskey will do, it has to be something special, something ultra-aged, something that will never again be repeated.

That is certainly the case with the 37th release from the . It’s a blend of three barrels distilled in 1995, 1996, and 1997, a time when you could turn on the radio and hear Collective Soul, Silverchair, and Soul Asylum, in that order (look them up). Master blender Drew Mayville and master distiller Harlen Wheatley selected these barrels to marry together, and the whiskey ended up at cask strength of 121.8 proof in a run of just 508 bottles. There are a few points to discuss here. First of all, that is a really high proof for a whiskey this old, but that certainly has something to do with the fact that it was matured for some time in Warehouse P, the experimental aging facility at that came online in 2018.

The length of time is not disclosed, but let’s assume these three barrels spent up to seven years in Warehouse P. That’s still quite a long time of Kentucky aging before that, but there are some tricks a distillery can use, like moving barrels from warmer to cooler spots and controlling the climate inside a warehouse, which does. Even so, my assumption was that this whiskey would likely be at least a little bit overly oaky and bitter, which I found the release from a few years ago to be. Nope. This bourbon is great. On the nose, there are aromas of brown sugar, honey, cherry, and oak. That’s followed by rich caramel, cinnamon, grape jelly, orange marmalade, and toasted coconut on the palate, with a final flurry of menthol and red hots on the finish. At times, there’s an almost peaty note to the bourbon—although obviously peat was not involved—perhaps the result of all that time soaking up barrel char, or just a funky leather note that I interpreted as such.

The question is, are you willing to pay $10,500 for this bourbon (and probably much more than that on the secondary market)? Consider that you can get a bottle of for half that and the for close to the Last Drop’s asking price. Still, those are not as old and, more importantly, they aren’t whiskeys, and that name has a lot of cache amongst whiskey fans, regardless of what you think of that phenomenon. At least the price includes a small 50-ml sample of the bourbon to sample if you don’t want to actually open your bottle because you plan on flipping it in the future. The bottom line is that not all old whiskies are truly very good, particularly when it comes to bourbon, and are priced based more on rarity than quality. This new Buffalo Trace bourbon from the Last Drop, however, turns out to both rare and excellent, and seems destined to become a collector’s item.

Score: 96

Credit: robbreport.com