Buffalo Trace Announces Another Bourbon You Won't Be Able to Find or Afford - 1994 Vintage O.F.C.

Buffalo Trace has announced the latest edition of their O.F.C. Bourbon with their 1994 Vintage. This new vintage was barreled in 1994 (the year Friends debuted on television). The 1994 edition will be available in extremely limited quantities beginning in November of 2019 and carries a suggested price tag of $2500.

Some interesting things to note from this release:

• The O. F. C. name is derived from the National Historic Landmark’s original moniker – the O.F.C. Distillery. 
• The price for O.F.C. 25 year is $2500.... for context, the price for 23 year Pappy Van Winkle is $299.99... making O.F.C. more than 8x more expensive.
• Given the analysis I did when Glenlivet Released a 50 Year Old Single Malt, over the 25 years in the barrel, approximately 20.5 gallons remained from the original 53 gallon fill. 

The bottles come in a 'wooden display box containing a provenance card. Inside the wooden box lies a crystal bottle with real copper lettering in-laid in the bottle with a hand applied paper label.' This is the 4th release of O.F.C., but only the 3rd available for retail as the 2016 releases were given to select charities for free where they were auctioned and raised over $1.1 million dollars.

The tasting notes are:

Nose: Cherry followed by butterscotch with hints of brown sugar and oak.
Taste: Toasted caramel, cinnamon, and oak
Finish: Coffee, herbs, and oak.

My Take

The 2018 version (also called the 1993 Vintage) of O.F.C. had 6 bottles allocated to Ohio consumers (there were additional bottles available to retail) where the odds of winning were 1 in 1026 (0.0009%). For context, you have a 1 in 160 chance of being audited by the I.R.S..

With that said, this isn't a bourbon anyone will ever get to try. It's cool that it exists, but beyond that, this isn't one I'm going to spend too much time thinking about.

Source: Buffalo Trace