Carbon & Oak

Buffalo Trace itself has one of the longest continuous whiskey-making histories in America. The distillery traces its roots back to the late 1700s, when travelers and herds of buffalo carved paths across the Kentucky frontier to the banks of the Kentucky River.

In 1984 Elmer T. Lee bottled one barrel by itself and accidentally invented modern bourbon hunting. The history behind Blanton's, Warehouse H, and the stoppers.

Four Roses uncorked the oldest bourbon in its history this week — a 21-year-old at $500 a bottle — while Brown-Forman went hunting for a new CEO. The numbers still say the top shelf is the only shelf growing, and down at the pit, beef keeps climbing as a new Food Network showdown lights the burners.

I haven't had a full pour of Pappy Van Winkle. Almost nobody has, and that hasn't stopped it from becoming the bourbon everyone has an opinion about.

This one just happens to carry the name of the man who started it — the master distiller who selected the barrels that became Blanton's, and later got a bottle carrying his own name.

A busy week for bourbon watchers — Sazerac closed a $20 million deal to acquire the former Garrard County Distilling property in Kentucky, Buffalo Trace dug into Prohibition-era history, and the industry handed out its mid-year awards. Here's everything worth knowing.