FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — Buffalo Trace Distillery has been continuously making bourbon in Frankfort for more than 200 years. Generations of families have worked in its rickhouses. One third-generation employee has become a bourbon icon in Kentucky, and just became the first Black member inducted into the Whisky Magazine Hall of Fame.
Things are always in motion in a distillery. Just about the only thing at rest is the bourbon itself. Perhaps the most active place to be at Buffalo Trace Distillery is a tour led by Freddie Johnson.
"I started playing here when I was five years old," Johnson said to visitors on a recent tour.
His grandfather, Jimmy Johnson, Sr was childhood friends with Colonel Albert Blanton, an eventual president of the distillery.
"They became friends and Colonel Blanton took a liking to my granddad. They were here together for 52 years. My grandfather became the first African-American to be the warehouse manager of over 250,000 barrels of whiskey, and he kept up with them on a paper ledger," Johnson said.
That tradition continued with Freddie's dad, Jimmy Johnson, Jr. Then, Freddie fulfilled a promise he'd made to his dad that they would work here together. He became a tour guide in 2002.
"It was really kind of eerie. I played here as a kid and my background is engineering, chemistry, and science, so I approached it like a kid going into a jelly bean factory or something," Johnson said.
Now the Distillery VIP Visitor Lead, Johnson has become famous for his tours.
"People will try to think about the distillery as a place and I try to get them to think of it as an emotion. They may not remember everything that you say, but they'll always remember how you made them feel," he said.
Johnson was inducted into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame in 2018. Then, just last week, the Whisky Magazine Hall of Fame, becoming their first Black member.
"Yeah, that was pretty cool!" Johnson said. "I haven't really processed all that yet,"
Historically, the bourbon world hasn't been known for diversity. To this day, Johnson said, there are sometimes ugly comments. He recalls one tour that took an uncomfortable turn.
"This group that came in at the last minute, this person just blurts right out, 'I don't know about you all, but I'm going with the white guy,' The whole group just went silent and I'm like, 'Oh my…'," he said.
That comment, Johnson said, was quickly countered by a woman who said the rest of the people on the tour would gladly go with him.
"How amazing that in this world that we live in today, that that still exists, but then the mass majority of the folks say, 'We are here to make this world a better place, and that's no longer the behavior that we want to represent,'" Johnson said.
Making the world better is something Johnson focuses on. The Kentucky Black Bourbon Guild has a scholarship named in his honor.
"We've set a Freddie Scholarship Fund. A portion of the proceeds of their barrel and bottle selections that they do goes to a scholarship fund. So far, we have sponsored nine students under that scholarship fund," he said.
Sales of his namesake beverage at the distillery, Freddie's Old-Fashioned Soda, helped preserve nearby Green Hill Cemetery, which has a monument to Black soldiers from Kentucky who fought in the Civil War.
"The cool part about that is that's my legacy. When I no longer walk this earth, it's the good that men do when they are no longer on this earth that is your legacy and I hope to leave behind something that says I made the world a little bit better place while I was here," he said.
That's what drives Johnson to make an impact on everyone who steps foot on the grounds of Buffalo Trace.
"That's my hope in doing all this is just to let everyone know the world's a pretty cool place and it's just the people you meet along the way that make it better," he said.
Better, and like the bourbon resting in these barrels, a little richer, too.
