We visited Buffalo Trace Distillery’s new London digs and it’s a must-see for whiskey lovers

This may seem obvious to some, but it is important to make one thing clear: this is not a distillery. I heard another guest ask this question, so I thought it was important to clarify. As Victoria Zabel-Wirdak, the distillery’s director of global communications, joked, it couldn’t be classified as bourbon if it was made in the UK. So you won’t find any cookers, fermenters or stills here. If that sounds disappointing to some, the UK has no shortage of world-class distilleries if you want to know how whiskey is made. And while the exact methods vary from distillery to distillery, all whiskeys are more or less made using the same principles.

The reason we’re excited about Buffalo Trace London is because it’s the first of its kind. Nowhere else in the UK can you walk into a store at one of America’s most famous distilleries. Even Jack Daniels (the UK’s best-known whiskey name) doesn’t have a physical foothold in the country. While other bourbon tasting experiences may be fleeting, very expensive, or of poor quality, the Buffalo Trace establishment provides a permanent home for anyone who wants to taste good bourbon. During the tasting, they emphasized their desire to become a globally recognized brand, and this store was part of the process to achieve that.