Buffalo Trace, now and again over the last few years, has taken a number of its higher end O.F.C. bourbon bottlings and other whiskeys and made them available for charities to auction off for fundraising. For 2022, the venerable Kentucky whiskey distillery is stepping up the game, offering up 2,022 bottles across its brands, including five, six-liter bottles of O.F.C. Vintage 1982 that will be sold as a non-fungible token (NFT) on BlockBar, a DTC NFT marketplace for luxury wines and spirits.
The five bottles of O.F.C. Vintage 1982 will each be auctioned off with a starting bid of approximately $25,000 USD (8.83 ETH). Bids can be placed via BlockBar HERE and can be made via Ethereum or Fiat starting at 10 a.m. EST on Monday, March 14th through 10 a.m. EST on Friday, March 18th. Proceeds from each of the winning, final bids will benefit the following charities:
- World Central Kitchen – a non-profit organization that is first to the frontlines, providing meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises, currently supporting thousands of refugees in and around Ukraine
- The James Beard Foundation – through their Open for Good campaign, the Foundation is committed to helping independent restaurants survive this crisis, rebuild better, and thrive for the long term
- Elton John Aids Foundation – a global HIV charity that funds frontline partners to prevent new cases of HIV, fight stigma and provide care for those affected
- The Art of Elysium – an artist organization built on the idea that through service, art becomes a catalyst for social change
- 261 Fearless – a global, non-profit women’s running organization dedicated to encouraging and uniting women through running
“We have been inspired by what our charity partners have done to help communities worldwide and are proud to help further their missions through the release of our exclusive O.F.C Vintage 1982 NFTs,” said Vice President of Marketing for Buffalo Trace Distillery, Sara Saunders, in a prepared statement. “We are thrilled to bring our rich history and philanthropic efforts to the forefront of today’s technology and we couldn’t ask for a better ally than BlockBar to help us achieve that.”
Each of the five NFTs will represent an authentic six-liter sized bottle of O.F.C Vintage 1982, available to be redeemed by December 31st, 2022. When redeemed, the NFT holder will also unlock a personal invitation to Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, KY for a private VIP tour experience that is said to include exclusive tastings of whiskeys from its rarest and most sought-after private collection,including some previous vintages from the O.F.C. collection.
“Buffalo Trace Distillery is world renowned and we’re honored to launch our first bourbon on Blockbar.com with five of their most coveted bottles,” said Dov Falic, co-founder and CEO of BlockBar. “The partnership marks our first live auction and to mark this milestone we are delighted to donate the proceeds of this drop to support the chosen non-profits of Buffalo Trace.”
Buffalo Trace noted that the bourbon in the O.F.C. six-liter release was distilled in 1982, at what was then the George T. Stagg Distillery, now known as Buffalo Trace Distillery. When an inventory of all barrels was taken in 1998, these barrels were noted and left to age until 2001, when at that time the 19-year-old bourbon was vatted into stainless steel tanks, which is a very common process distillers use to halt the aging effects of the barrel on the whiskey.
Harlen Wheatley, master distiller at Buffalo Trace Distillery, details the taste as sophisticated, with an extraordinary richness and butteriness with layers of apple, pecans, ripened pear, dark Belgian chocolate, caramel and a kiss of black cherries.
“This remarkable whiskey transitions to a memorable finish of dried dark fruit with delightful lingering oak. All the time knowing that you’re tasting history as you taste the last drops,” said Wheatley. “This truly is a once in a lifetime taste experience.”
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Like its predecessors in the O.F.C. line, the 1982 Vintage will be in what’s described as an elegant, hand-cut crystal bottle with inlaid copper lettering custom created for the brand, but “supersized” in a six-liter bottle. At this size, this bottle is nine times the size of a usual whiskey bottle and holds over a gallon of whiskey, standing at 2 feet tall and weighing 22.5 pounds with liquid inside. The cap itself weighs in at a hefty six pounds. Glass artisans cut the shoulder facets of the bottle using equipment created exclusively for Buffalo Trace Distillery.
Each bottle was manually polished to achieve what’s said to be maximum glass brilliance before in-laying cut copper lettering to spell out “O.F.C.” on the front. The bottle is housed inside a wooden display case, along with a provenance card that notes the milestones of the year 1982.
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