In 1849, Benjamin Blanton made his fortune in the California gold mines. In 1865, back in Kentucky, he built a distillery known by the name of Old Fire Copper (O.F.C.) renamed George T. Stagg in 1900. His son, Albert, better known by the name of Colonel Blanton, managed the distillery between 1912 and 1953. It was renamed Ancient Age in 1969, then Buffalo Trace in 1999.