04/15/2025
Buffalo Trace Distillery
Update 🥃
At Buffalo Trace Distillery, flood waters have now completely receded, granting access and allowing for clean-up and recovery efforts to happen throughout the entirety of campus.
Distillery leadership teams, along with engineers and expert clean-up and restoration professionals, have begun performing detailed assessments and subsequent repairs for any of the buildings affected by flood waters. The amount of damage is still being determined.
Updates as of Friday, April 11 are as follows:
▪️ Inspection of any barrels touched by the flood began Thursday, April 10 and will be ongoing until all have been appropriately assessed. This is a very involved process, including both barrel inspection as well as the same rigorous quality testing every bottle of whiskey undergoes at Buffalo Trace Distillery. Based on historical knowledge from previous floods, Buffalo Trace has been successful in recovering any barrels that might have been affected by flood waters; the Distillery is confident in its process. Inspection is expected to take several weeks, however, any loss of barrels is not expected to be meaningful.
▪️ Teams also started clean-up inside the Buffalo Trace Visitor Center, which saw flooding on the first floor and will require a period for repair. Teams are working diligently to re-open the Visitor Center in a modified manner as soon as possible. As of now, the Distillery will be closed to visitors through Sunday, April 13th.
▪️ Additionally, the Distillery expects to operate a greatly modified retail experience early next week from the “Freehouse Building.” This will be made accessible via an email reservation system available first to tour reservation holders whose visits were interrupted by the flooding.
▪️ Until the Distillery fully reopens to visitors, only select team members, recovery experts and guests are permitted on-site.
In the coming weeks, Buffalo Trace looks forward to sharing details on forthcoming relief initiatives to further support the community. Should you want to support relief efforts in the immediate, the Franklin County Flood Relief Fund has been set up by the city to collect donations and offer aid to those who need it most. Find more information via the following link: https://bgcf.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create/fund?funit_id=1985