Buffalo Trace Bourbon Guide: 4 Bottles, From $15.99 to Kosher

If you only buy one bottle from this list, make it this one. It's made from corn, rye, and malted barley, and aged for years in new charred oak barrels in warehouses that have been standing for over a century. It's bottled at 90 proof, which gives it enough warmth to remind you it's bourbon without ever tasting hot.

Buffalo Trace Bourbon Tasting Notes

• Color: Deep amber with copper highlights when you hold it to the light.
• Nose: Vanilla comes first, soft and sweet, followed by a surprising lift of fresh mint. Give it a minute in the glass and darker notes show up: molasses, brown sugar, and a little toasted oak.
• Palate: It opens with brown sugar sweetness, then moves into warm baking spice. The middle is where it shines, with toffee, candied fruit, and a touch of dark fruit like raisin or plum. Light oak and a faint anise note come in toward the back and keep it from being one-note sweet.
• Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied and smooth, with a slightly oily texture that coats the tongue.
• Finish: Long and easy. The toffee and oak fade slowly into gentle spice, with a little vanilla hanging around at the end.
• With a drop of water: The toffee and vanilla get louder, the spice softens, and the fruit becomes easier to pick out. It's worth trying both ways.

Our short Buffalo Trace bourbon review: it's sweet enough for someone just getting into whiskey and interesting enough that people who've been drinking bourbon for twenty years keep a bottle open.

Try It

Try it neat first, then with that drop of water. If you like it cold, use one big ice cube instead of a handful of small ones, so it doesn't turn watery halfway through the glass.

It also makes a very good Old Fashioned. Stir 2 oz of Buffalo Trace with ¼ oz simple syrup and two dashes of Angostura over ice. Strain it onto a large cube and twist an orange peel over the top. Because the bourbon is already on the sweet side, you need less syrup than most recipes call for. A bottle gets you about 12 of them, a little over $3 a drink.

Food Pairing

With food, it's great next to anything smoky, like brisket or ribs, and it's hard to beat with a slice of pecan pie.

This is the bottle we point people to when they tell us they don't like whiskey. Buffalo Trace Bourbon Cream is the flagship bourbon blended with fresh cream. At 30 proof, it's gentle, and the bourbon works in the background, keeping the sweetness in check.

Buffalo Trace Bourbon Cream Tasting Notes

• Color: Light caramel, like coffee with a generous splash of cream.
• Nose: Vanilla custard and caramel up front, with a gentle whiff of bourbon and oak underneath. It smells like a dessert counter.
• Palate: Rich and sweet without being syrupy. Think melted vanilla ice cream, butterscotch, and soft caramel, with a light hint of baking spice. The bourbon shows up mid-sip as a gentle warmth rather than a kick.
• Mouthfeel: Thick, velvety, and smooth. It coats the glass and the palate.
• Finish: Short to medium. Sweet vanilla lingers with a soft glow of bourbon warmth.
• Served cold: Chilling makes it taste richer and a little less sweet, and the texture gets even silkier. We always serve it straight from the fridge.

People often ask how it compares to Baileys. Baileys is made with Irish whiskey and leans chocolatey. Bourbon Cream leans toward vanilla and butterscotch and has a bit more body. If you like one, you'll almost certainly like the other, but they aren't interchangeable.

Try It

The best-known Buffalo Trace Bourbon Cream recipe is also the easiest: pour about 1.5 oz over a scoop of vanilla ice cream and top it with root beer. It's a grown-up float, and it's a guaranteed hit at a party. It's also good in hot coffee or cold brew instead of creamer, or poured straight over warm bread pudding or apple pie.

For something more autumnal, shake it with an ounce of the regular Buffalo Trace Bourbon and a pinch of pumpkin pie spice. If you're planning something for October, we've pulled together more ideas in our Halloween party drinks collection and on our recipes page.

Storage

Since it's made with real cream, keep it refrigerated after you open it and don't let it sit around for months.

This one surprises people. It's clear, it comes in a small bottle, and it's bourbon before it ever went into a barrel.

Every whiskey starts out as "white dog," the raw spirit that comes off the still. Buffalo Trace bottles some of it before aging, and the Wheated Mash is the softest version they make. Most bourbons use rye as the second grain, which is where that peppery bite comes from. This recipe uses wheat instead. It's the same style of recipe behind wheated bourbons like W.L. Weller, which Buffalo Trace also makes.

White Dog Wheated Mash Tasting Notes

• Color: Crystal clear. No barrel, no color.
• Nose: Sweet corn, fresh bread dough, and cereal grain, with a light, clean fruitiness underneath. The alcohol is noticeable, so nose it gently.
• Palate: Bold and hot on the first sip, then surprisingly soft. Sweet corn and warm bread lead, followed by a gentle, rounded grain sweetness. You'll notice what's missing: almost none of the pepper and spice that rye brings.
• Mouthfeel: Oily and a little syrupy, heavier than you might expect from a clear spirit.
• Finish: Warm and grainy, fading fairly quickly, with sweet corn staying the longest.
• With water: Strongly recommended. A few drops tame the heat and bring the sweetness and bready notes forward.

Here's why we think it's worth $15.99. Pour a little next to a glass of Buffalo Trace Bourbon and taste them one after the other. Everything the bourbon has that the White Dog doesn't, the amber color, the vanilla, the caramel, the oak, came from the barrel. You'll never taste bourbon quite the same way again. Because you only need small pours, the 375 mL bottle goes a long way.

Good kosher bourbon is surprisingly hard to find, which is why this bottle tends to sell out. Buffalo Trace's kosher line is made under the supervision of the Chicago Rabbinical Council and aged in barrels set aside only for kosher whiskey. This one is the Rye Recipe, meaning rye is the second grain alongside corn and malted barley.

Buffalo Trace Kosher Bourbon Tasting Notes

• Color: Warm amber.
• Nose: Caramel and vanilla, with a light peppery edge from the rye and a hint of toasted oak.
• Palate: Classic Kentucky sweetness up front: caramel, vanilla, and brown sugar. Rye spice builds through the middle, with black pepper and baking spice balanced by a bit of toasted oak.
• Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied and smooth.
• Finish: Medium length and warm, ending on baking spice and oak.
• Compared to the flagship: If you like the regular Buffalo Trace, this will feel familiar, just a little spicier and drier.

It's a natural fit for holiday dinners with brisket or roast chicken, and it makes a thoughtful gift for Hanukkah or for a Passover host. It costs the same as the flagship but feels like a harder-to-find bottle, because it is.

It moves fast, so if it's out when you check, send us a request or look through our special order spirits. Buffalo Trace also makes a Kosher Wheat Recipe bourbon and a Kosher Straight Rye whiskey, and we're happy to track those down too.