Buffalo Trace has a habit of turning its own history into whiskey, and the third edition of its Prohibition Collection is possibly the most extreme example yet.
This year’s annual limited release is five bottles reviving whiskeys the distillery legally produced during Prohibition, back when it was known as the George T. Stagg Distillery.
This is the third go-round for the series, following last year’s edition, and this year’s five expressions each resurrect a real label pulled from the distillery’s archives, reproduced down to the branding and packaging.
Here’s the lore: when the 18th Amendment shut down most of the country’s distilleries from 1920 to 1933, the federal government licensed just six to keep bottling whiskey for medicinal use, sold by prescription. The George T. Stagg Distillery was one of them.
On to the bottles themselves: there’s Henry Watterson, a cask-strength 140-proof Kentucky straight rye named for the Pulitzer-winning, fiercely anti-Prohibition congressman; Kentucky River, a 100-proof blend honoring the river that moved the distillery’s goods; John G. Carlisle, a 100-proof bourbon named for a co-architect of the 1897 Bottled-in-Bond Act; and Walter B. Duffy, a 107-proof blend of 10- and 14-year bourbons named for the owner who made Albert Blanton president in 1921.
The set comes in a custom wooden display case with archival imagery. Each 375ml bottle recreates its Prohibition-era predecessor, cartons included — complete with the prescription cut-out a physician once used to authorize a medicinal purchase.
Buffalo Trace Prohibition Collection #3 ships through Sazerac’s distributor network to select retailers, bars, and restaurants, at a suggested $999.99 for the five-bottle set.
A Whiskey Worth the History Lesson
I’ll admit I’m a sucker for whiskey with a bit of history, and this collection is basically a distillery archive you can drink. Henry Watterson, John G. Carlisle, Walter B. Duffy — these were real people tangled up in the distillery’s actual past, and the prescription-whiskey era they belong to is one of the strangest chapters in American booze history. For three years, the only legal way to buy a bottle of this stuff was to convince a doctor you needed it.
The Carlisle bottle is the nerdiest pick, and my favorite for it: naming a tribute whiskey after a Bottled-in-Bond architect is the kind of inside reference that rewards anyone who knows why the 1897 act mattered. The cut-out prescription cartons are a similarly great touch — the sort of detail that turns a $1,000 box of whiskey into something closer to a showpiece.
At a grand for five half-bottles, this isn’t a casual buy, and it isn’t meant to be. It’s firmly a collector’s set, and it’s one of the more interesting things Buffalo Trace puts out all year. It’s been a busy year for the distillery, too: 2026 alone has brought the $12,500 Eagle Rare 30 — its oldest age-stated bourbon ever — plus a relaunch of two E.H. Taylor favorites and a new Daniel Weller wheated release.
Where to Buy It
Buffalo Trace Prohibition Collection #3 is available in limited quantities through select retailers, bars, and restaurants via Sazerac’s distributor network, at a suggested $999.99 for the five-bottle (375ml) set. More at buffalotracedistillery.com.
