A historic distillery, Buffalo Trace was built in 1812 Harrison Blanton. It was then purchased by the legendary Edmund Haynes Taylor Jr in 1870, who named it OFC (Old Fashioned Copper) and invested heavily in its modernisation. So much so in fact that he declared himself bankrupt after just seven years, and George T. Stagg stepped in to rescue it, becoming its owner in 1878. He ran the distillery until his retirement in the 1890s, and it was renamed in his honour in 1904. Having survived Prohibition, it was bought up by the Schenley company in 1933, who ran it as part of their extensive portfolio for the next fifty years, eventually selling it to Age International. The latter’s new Japanese ownership in 1992 had no interest in it (only in its brands), and immediately sold it to the Sazerac company, who renamed it Buffalo Trace in 1999.

Because Sazerac did not own the the existing distillery portfolio, they necessarily had to begin adding new brands to their range. Besides their eponymous flagship bourbon, perhaps the most important of these was this, the George T. Stagg. It was originally added to the annual Antique Collection in 2002, quickly becoming a flag-bearer for the range. Stagg Jr was the brands first line extension, and was launched in 2013. A barrel proof bourbon, these are bottled in twice-annual batches and receive a wider and more accessible distribution than their hugely sought-after sibling.

Batch #3 was released in the autumn of 2014.