Buffalo Trace Distillery

Colonel Blanton ran Buffalo Trace through Prohibition and died at Stony Point in 1959. Guards see him in Warehouse C; surveillance does not.

Security guard Zack Evans saw the same old man in worker's clothing every day for a week inside Warehouse C at Buffalo Trace Distillery. He ran the surveillance footage back every time. Nobody was there.

Buffalo Trace sits at a bend in the Kentucky River just north of Frankfort, on a site that's produced whiskey since 1787. The ghost most of its stories revolve around is Colonel Albert Blanton, who started as an office boy in 1897 and worked his way up to president. Blanton kept the distillery alive through Prohibition by selling "medicinal" bourbon, which is the only reason Buffalo Trace is still one of the oldest continuously operating distilleries in America. He died in 1959 at Stony Point, the mansion on the grounds he built for himself in the 1930s. Staff and visitors still report seeing a figure in the window of the room where he died, and voices coming from his former meeting room when it's locked and empty.

Warehouse C, built in 1885, is where most of the sightings happen. Rickhouse after rickhouse of aging barrels. Tour guides describe heavy boots walking on the level above their heads while they're mid-tour, climbing up to find nothing. A figure appears at the far end of a corridor and then not anywhere it should appear next.

TAPS investigated in season 7, episode 23 of Ghost Hunters. During the sweep, Jason and Grant both reported being pinched on the backside by something they couldn't see. Tango and Steve said they were attacked by a shadowy figure in the warehouse. Whether you buy the TV-investigation footage or not, it's a specific claim from a named team in a specific space that visitors and tour guides keep backing up.

Buffalo Trace runs official ghost tours Thursday through Saturday, 21-and-up only, with registration required. A Halloween series called "Night at the Distillery" cycles through every October. Ghost hunters come for Warehouse C. Bourbon drinkers come for the bottles Blanton's name is still on. Most of the time they're the same people, standing in the same rickhouse, watching for the old man in work clothes who doesn't show up on the cameras.