NORSENOW [ E N TR E P R E N E U R]
KENTUCKY STRAIGHT
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For master distiller Harlen Wheatley, great bourbon starts with good chemistry.
t’s true that Harlen Wheatley (’94) gets paid to taste bourbon, and, yes, he knows he has one of the best jobs in the world. But it’s not day drinking that puts a smile on the face of Buffalo Trace’s master distiller—he’s just really into chemistry. “Nowadays, when people think about Buffalo Trace, they think about those whiskies in the bottle,” he says. “But when I started here, it was about the production facility.”
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Wheatley’s role takes him both into the still house and around the globe for bourbon education, and his hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed—he’s been nominated for the James Beard Award four times, and Buffalo Trace’s whiskies are considered among the best spirits in the world by chefs and connoisseurs. But ask Wheatley about the man behind the brand, and his thoughts wander back to a boyhood in Union, Kentucky. “It was pretty rural back then, and we
did a lot of country things—you know, hunting and fishing,” he says, remembering a crossbow he built in shop class at Ockerman Middle School. “I’m assuming these days they’d never let you build that in school, but, yeah, it was a working crossbow. I put a spool on the front, shot fish and reeled them in. It was fun.” In high school, he played soccer, baseball and, most notably, football—Wheatley was a linebacker for Boone County the year the team made it to the state title game—and
