George T. Stagg 2015 is a 138.2-proof, fifteen-year-old Kentucky straight bourbon from the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. It is remembered for how little whiskey its barrels gave up: evaporation took more than four-fifths of the original fill.
About This Bourbon
This release came from 128 barrels filled in spring 2000 and aged 15 years and 1 month across Warehouses C, H, I, K, L, M and Q, on floors from the first to the seventh. The batch size was normal, but about 84% of the whiskey had evaporated, and some barrels held only a gallon or two when emptied, so fewer bottles were filled than usual. It was bottled at 138.2 proof, or 69.1% ABV. The distillery's own tasting notes point to espresso, molasses, chocolate, vanilla and dates.
Tasting Profile
- Nose: Espresso, molasses and dark chocolate, with dates and charred oak.
- Palate: Thick and forceful; toffee, dried dark fruit and baking spice, the alcohol very present when neat.
- Finish: Very long, with cocoa, clove and a warm char that keeps going.
Serving & Food
At almost 70% ABV this needs water: start neat in a small nosing glass, then add a few drops at a time with a pipette until the heat settles. Follow it with dark chocolate truffles, medjool dates or a cigar on a cool evening.
How to Enjoy
Experienced whisky fans happy to adjust strength themselves, and Stagg collectors filling in the vintages around the millennium distillations.
Product Details
Producer: Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, Kentucky
Collection: Buffalo Trace Antique Collection
Expression: George T. Stagg
Release: 2015
Distilled: Spring 2000
Age: 15 years 1 month
Barrels: 128
Proof: 138.2 proof / 69.1% ABV
Format: 750mL
About the Distillery
Buffalo Trace stands on the bank of the Kentucky River at Frankfort, on ground where settlers established Leestown in the eighteenth century, beside an old buffalo crossing that gives the distillery its present name. Whiskey has been made on the site for a very long time, and the brick warehouses there hold the stocks that feed the Antique Collection.
The modern plant grew out of E. H. Taylor Jr.'s investment in a new distillery on the site in the 1870s, later run by George T. Stagg. Now owned by the Sazerac Company, the distillery keeps its Stagg bourbon simple in principle: barrel to bottle, no water added and no filtering, so each year's proof is a record of the warehouse rather than a target.