Words Of Wisdom From Bourbon Legend Freddie Johnson

Photo courtesy Buffalo Trace

I haven’t been posting as much as I should have lately, but it’s not because I’m a lazy bum (although I really am kind of a lazy bum). But in this case, at least, it’s because I’m currently in the middle of a few things, including an article for The Bourbon Review mag about Blanton’s Single Barrel Bourbon. I got to chat on the phone with the legendary Jimmy Russell — master distiller at Wild Turkey, who’s been with the brand since 1954 — about Elmer T. Lee, who created Blanton’s. To say it was a thrill is an understatement. I’ve met Jimmy on several occasions, but every time our paths cross my inner fanboy still comes out in full force.

I also got to chat with Freddie Johnson, who’s less well known but also a legendary figure in bourbon, even though he’s never distilled a drop of the stuff. He’s a third generation Buffalo Trace man — both his grandfather (warehouse foreman Jimmy Johnson, Sr.) and his father (warehouse supervisor Jimmy Johnson, Jr.) worked at the distillery, going all the way back to 1912. They were among the first Black people to hold such positions of authority at distilleries in Kentucky. While Freddie didn’t initially go into “the family business,” he returned to Frankfort, where the distillery is located, to care for his ailing father in 2002, and became a tour guide at Buffalo Trace for what he thought would be a year or two. Almost 20 years later, he’s still at it, a walking repository of Buffalo Trace lore. He regales visitors nonstop with facts and figures that are always on the tip of his tongue, as well as his own childhood memories of being at the distillery with his father and grandfather.

Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway), if you’re going to write about anything having to do with Buffalo Trace’s history, you’ve got to talk to Freddie Johnson, so a phone call was arranged. I first met him last year when I was in Kentucky for the Bourbon Classic, but I’d never talked with him one-on-one. And there are few better ways to spend 90 minutes than to listen to Freddie Johnson regale you with tales of Buffalo Trace, Elmer T. Lee, Blanton’s, and his philosophy of life in general. He told me far more than I could fit into the article, but he said something towards the end of the conversation that I especially wanted to share, and where better to share it than here?

Somebody was talking to me and said “I finally got me a bottle of Blanton’s.” And he said, “I’m saving it.” And I said, “Oh really?  Saving it for what?” He said, “I’m not really sure, but it’s gonna be something special.”  I said, let me tell you something. Have you ever noticed you only bring out your good stuff with people you like? Think about it — if I don’t like you, I won’t even tell you I’ve got it because I don’t want you asking for it. But what do you do with that good bottle of bourbon that you stood in line for three days for, and you tell everyone what you went through, and you pour a little bit of it in their glass, and then you put that stopper back in the bottle and you put it back on the shelf, and you say “This is one and done”?

There will always be more bottles of Blanton’s. And there will always be more bourbon. But when you pour that drink, never lose sight of why you poured it. You poured it because you were with someone that you cared about, that you wanted to share it with. 

My dad shared with me, he said, “Always remember, it is far better to have the good memories that bottle created when you shared it with friends and people you care about, than to know that the memories never got created because you were too busy trying to save it.”

Unfortunately, I fail to follow Freddie’s advice far too often myself, but it’s worth putting his words out into the universe so all us hoarders might reconsider stashing away the good stuff.