George T. Stagg
Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
by Brian Donnelly
Who was George T. Stagg?
George T. Stagg was born in 1835 in Lancaster, Kentucky, 35 miles South of Lexington, in Garrard County. Stagg was a talented whiskey salesman, partner with the famous Colonel Edmund Haines Taylor, Jr, and owner of the historic O.F.C. (Old Fire Copper) Distillery, now the present day Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfurt.
Before working in the whiskey industry, Stagg enlisted in the Union Army in 1861 during the American Civil War. He served in the 21st Kentucky Infantry Regiment and saw combat in the Battle of Franklin, Battle of Nashville, Battles of Stone River, Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, and Siege of Atlanta.
Stagg received several promotions during the conflict, but when the war ended in 1865, he left the Army and moved with his family to St. Louis, Missouri. There, he met and impressed an affluent local business man named James Gregory. Together the two formed a partnership and established a new company call "Gregory & Stagg, Commercial Merchants & Distillers' Agents." Stagg went on to sell Kentucky whiskey throughout the United States. His work allowed him to get to know many of the big-name distillers and rectifiers of the time.
In 1873, severe economic conditions put the famous bourbon producer Colonel Edmund Haines Taylor, Jr. in considerable debt with Gregory & Stagg’s company. Stagg used Taylor's financial woe's as an opportunity to transition from Kentucky whiskey salesman to distillery owner and producer. The company paid off Taylor's debt and gained a controlling interest in Taylor's two distilleries, the O.F.C. Distillery (Old Fashioned Copper) in Frankfurt and the Carlisle Distillery in Leestown.
Despite his financial hardships, Taylor was still known as "The Father of the Modern Bourbon Industry," and Stagg understood the importance of keeping the Taylor name associated with the company and, subsequently, the whiskey they produced. Stagg established the E.H. Taylor, Jr. Company in 1879, with himself president and Taylor as vice president.
In the following six years, Stagg and Taylor's working relationship continued to disintegrate, and Taylor wanted out. In exchange for Taylor's remaining stock shares, Stagg would financially support the building of Taylor's new distillery, the Old Taylor Distillery, and remove Taylor's name from everything. Stagg worried about losing the standard for high quality that Taylor's name represented, so he decided to keep the name on the company's letterhead. Taylor was infuriated with this decision and filed several lawsuits against Stagg. Finally, the case was settled in court, and the company name officially changed to the "George T. Stagg & Co." in 1890.
Stagg had finally made the full transition from a whiskey salesman to running a massive operation at two different distilleries. The workload took a toll on Stagg, so with bourbon prices falling, he retired in the early 1890s, shortly before his death in 1893 at the age of just 58.
In 1904, the O.F.C (Old Fashioned Copper) Distillery officially changed its name to "The George T. Stagg Distillery." The distillery went by this name for almost a century unit was renamed the Buffalo Trace Distillery in August of 1999, after a significant renovation and the launching of a new flagship Bourbon of the same name. The Buffalo Trace Distillery remains highly recognized for its quality, consistency, and innovation, winning "Distillery of the Year" in 2000 and "Whiskey of the Year" in 2001 and 2002.
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George T. Stagg, Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
George T. Stagg is produced from Buffalo Trace's mash bill #1, a traditional bourbon mash bill of corn, rye, and malted barley, but with a low-rye content. Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, and E.H. Taylor, Jr. are also produced from this same mash bill. This expression is a member of the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection (BTAC) with Sazerac Rye 18-Year-Old, William Larue Weller, Thomas H. Handy, and Eagle Rare 17-Year-Old. Outside of the famous Pappy Van Winkle line of bourbons, these five whiskies are some of the world's most collectible whiskies.
Stagg Jr., Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
George T. Stagg Bourbon is always bottled uncut, unfiltered, and at no less than 15 year-old. There is also a slightly younger expression of George T. Stagg available called "Stagg Jr." This expression is also uncut, unfiltered, and bottled around 10 year-old.
The Buffalo Trace Distillery provides a high degree of transparency about every aspect of this expression's production. The links are available below:
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