Blanton's created the modern premium bourbon category. In 1984, Master Distiller Elmer T. Lee — who'd worked at the distillery since 1949 — commercialized what had previously been a private ritual: Colonel Albert B. Blanton's habit of hand-selecting single barrels from the center cuts of Warehouse H for his personal guests. The result was the world's first commercially sold single barrel bourbon, launched a full year before Lee's retirement, and it changed how American whiskey was made, marketed, and collected. Every bottle still comes from Buffalo Trace's higher-rye Mash Bill #2 (shared with Elmer T. Lee and Rock Hill Farms), aged exclusively in the metal-clad Warehouse H — which Colonel Blanton believed matured whiskey faster and more evenly — and each is dumped one barrel at a time, with the barrel number, rick, and dump date handwritten on the label. The iconic round grenade bottle is topped with one of eight collectible horse-and-jockey stoppers, each frozen at a different stride of a race, spelling B-L-A-N-T-O-N-S when collected. The range climbs in proof: the flagship Original Single Barrel at 93, Special Reserve and Takara editions for export markets, Gold Edition at 103 (a longtime overseas exclusive now stateside), and the uncut Straight From the Barrel at full cask strength. Perpetually allocated, endlessly hunted, and still the standard against which single barrel bourbon is measured.

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