Albert B. Blanton Biography

Albert Blanton was born on a farm adjacent to the distillery in 1881. He was the older of two children, both growing up and attending school in Frankfort.  

In 1897, Blanton began as an office boy at what was then known as the George T. Stagg Distillery.  This was the beginning of his lifelong association with the distillery. Over the next several years, Blanton carried out a campaign of learning the bourbon industry by working in every department in the distillery. By the time he was twenty years old, Col. Blanton, as he was to become known, was appointed superintendent of the distillery, its warehouses and bottling shop. In 1921, at age forty, Col. Blanton was named President of the George T. Stagg Bourbon Distillery.

During his career the distillery survived Prohibition by bottling, with a special government permit for “medicinal whiskey,” which was sold in drug stores by prescription. After Prohibition came the  depression, the flood of 1937 and straight alcohol production for the military during World War II.  

Col. Blanton met all of these challenges and continued his distillery leadership by producing world class bourbons such as Old Quaker and Cream of Kentucky. Col. Blanton was interested not only in the whiskey, but also in the presentation of the distillery. During his tenure Stony Point was built, the clubhouse was constructed and the gardens were designed and planted.

In 1984 the world’s first single barrel bourbon was introduced. It was named Blanton’s in honor of Col. Albert B. Blanton who often pulled a special barrel of bourbon from the warehouse to share with his friends.