Buffalo Trace is starting 2025 off strong with the announcement of one of their most exciting annual releases: Prohibition Collection. The five-bottle set, which is supplemented by an equal number of cigars sourced from Scandinavian Tobacco Group, could easily be one of the best new things of the year. And one of the best “old” things, too.
The Prohibition Collection celebrates brands of whiskey that were legally sold “at the distillery while the 18th Amendment was in effect (from 1920 to 1933)” by recreating the original whiskeys for a one-off release. So, the whiskey you’re getting in 2025 is the modern approximation of what you’d have needed to get a prescription to drink in 1925.
Buffalo Trace created this collection largely from their own archives, which together represent documents from a number of brands and businesses acquired over parent company Sazerac’s many years in the business. If you’ve never heard of many of the labels, that’s probably most of these so-called medicinal whiskeys didn’t survive the several dark eras for American whiskey, and the folks who drank them when they were being made are mostly the people who still think this “internet thing” is just a fad.
This year’s distillery in question is the fabled George T. Stagg Distillery, which was run by a man known today less by his first name (Albert) and more by his surname (Blanton).President Blanton’s 2025 brands are Mirror Brook, Very Oldest Procurable (V.O.P.), Anderson’s Belle, Old Fashioned Mountain Corn, and Silver Wedding Rye Whiskey.
Buffalo Trace has shared trivia ahead of the release—some of the highlights include:
- Mirror Brook does not seem to have much of a history in Buffalo Trace’s archives. According to the distillery, the name first appeared in 1932 in a letter written by Albert Blanton “in which he directed cases of O.F.C. bottled in 1919 to be rebottled as Mirror Brook to update obsolete pre-Prohibition labeling.”
- Very Oldest Procurable was bottled but not owned by Stagg during Prohibition. In 1932, Blanton submitted paperwork to “formally register the name V.O.P. for medicinal bottling orders.”
- Anderson’s Belle was, according to Buffalo Trace, “a limited release meant to honor a woman—yet there is no record of who ‘Anderson’s Belle’ was in the Distillery’s archives.”
- Old Fashioned Mountain Corn’s original packaging featured a claim to have been “Made in the Heart of the Bluegrass,” which Buffalo Trace has carried over to the new branding. The claim “appeared on many Prohibition whiskey brands, referencing a time before industrialized cities became the norm.”
- Silver Wedding Rye Whiskey actually references the traditional gift for a 25-year anniversary (the way Golden Wedding Rye Whiskey was named for a 50-year celebration), though it sadly does not appear that this was a 25-year-old whiskey. According to the distillery, this “short-lived, limited whiskey release was replaced by Silver Wedding Gin and often paired with Golden Wedding Rye Whiskey at public events.”
If your first instinct is to want to try all of these retro/throwback bottles, there’s some good news and some bad news. First, the good news: the Buffalo Trace Prohibition Collection isn’t like its Antique Collection counterpart—while you can (and are essentially forced to) acquire each of the “BTAC” whiskeys separately to “collect them all,” the Prohibition Collection is only sold as a set of five. That’s also good news for those of you shocked by the initial sticker price of $1,000 (well, $999.99), but perhaps still a bit stiff considering that these are only 375 ml bottles—half of a “standard” bottle of whiskey in the normal market.
The bad news, unfortunately, is that these will likely be as challenging to track down as, well, everything else Buffalo Trace makes. However, each of the 750 individually numbered cigar sets, which are packaged in boxes that mirror the whiskey collection’s packaging, will likely be easier to get your hands on via Cigora.
Speaking of the packaging, Buffalo Trace has kept the presentation simple and cool—the set comes in a custom wood display case, and the modest bottle art takes heavily from Prohibition-era designs for their labels, including reproduction cut-outs where a doctor’s prescription would have been attached. It almost makes you want to go back in time just to see what the originals were like. If you do find a time machine, make sure to stock up before your return trip.
G. Clay Whittaker is a Maxim contributor covering lifestyle, whiskey, cannabis and travel. His work has also appeared in Bon Appetit, Men’s Journal, Cigar Aficionado, Playboy and Esquire. Subscribe to his newsletter Drinks & Stuff for perspectives on drinks, and stuff.