Bourbon
Kentucky
The permanent recreation of Barrel #80, winner of Buffalo Trace's landmark Single Oak Project: a 1999 experiment that hand-selected 96 Missouri Ozark oak trees, split each into top and bottom sections to create 192 individual barrels, and varied seven factors (mash bill, barrel entry proof, stave seasoning, wood grain, char level, tree cut, and warehouse type) to isolate their effects on flavor. In 2011, consumers and expert tasters chose Barrel #80 (rye mash bill, 125-proof entry, 12-month seasoned average-grain staves, #4 char, bottom-half tree cut, aged 8 years on a concrete-floor warehouse) as the standout of all 192, and Buffalo Trace now recreates those exact conditions as an ongoing release.