Before his father died, Freddie Johnson made him a promise: he would carry on the family legacy and go to work at Buffalo Trace Distillery.
“I’m here because of a promise, and that’s the best decision I ever made,” Freddie says.
Barrels of aging bourbon are stacked tall throughout acres of warehouses at the distillery. The sweet smells of the crafting process fill the air as guests listen to Freddie, a tour guide at the distillery, speak about the design of the warehouses, the white oak barrels, the bourbon aging process and his family’s impact on the distillery.
Both his father and grandfather worked at Buffalo Trace. That’s why his dad asked Freddie, then in his late 50s, to take a pause in his engineering career to work there. Freddie planned to stay there for year. He has been there for 13.
At Buffalo Trace, Freddie is a well-known tour guide. Some of the staff yells “Hey, Hollywood” or “What’s up, Big Daddy?” when he enters a room. Special visitors to the distillery frequently request him as a tour guide.
“He was my mentor,” says Becky Benassi, a fellow tour guide for eight years. “Awesome is the word to describe him.”
Freddie says he enjoys just wandering the grounds of the distillery, where he went often as a child and where a wall commemorates his family’s contributions to the company.
Freddie jokes with the people on his tours, learns all their names and customizes the tour to their interests.
“It’s not the journey – it’s the people along the way that make it matter,” Freddie says.
