Bourbon, Friendship, and Life-Changing Moments with Freddie Johnson

What makes a simple promise the most significant gift you could ever give someone? For Freddie Johnson, Buffalo Trace Distillery's beloved ambassador, keeping his word literally saved his life.

Sitting in what he calls "the ultimate man cave," Freddie shares the rich tapestry of his family's deep connection to Kentucky bourbon. As the third generation to walk the grounds of Buffalo Trace, Freddie's stories transport us through time—from his grandfather throwing rocks with Colonel Blanton along the riverbank to his father's 47-year partnership with legendary master distiller Elmer T. Lee. These aren't just family anecdotes; they're living lessons about what truly matters.

"The product in the bottle is just the byproduct of a good relationship," Freddie explains, revealing a philosophy that extends far beyond distilling. Through what he calls "memory moments," Freddie illustrates how seemingly ordinary encounters—like meeting the speakeasy's owner Tony years ago—can become foundational turning points in our lives. His most powerful story recounts how honoring a promise to care for his ailing father ultimately placed him in Kentucky instead of beneath the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001—a profound example of how "promises made, promises kept" can alter destinies.

Beyond his ambassadorial role, Freddie channels his passion into a 501(c)(3) charity that restores historical cemetery sites. Using cutting-edge technology, his team has identified thousands of forgotten graves, preserving crucial chapters of American history that might otherwise disappear. A dollar from every case of his namesake root beer and soda line directly funds these restoration efforts.

Whether you're a bourbon enthusiast or simply someone who values authentic human connection, Freddie's perspective on creating "lifetime memory moments" will transform how you think about the choices we make every day. As he reminds us, it's not about what could have been, but what should be—and the courage to choose wisely when those moments arrive.

Transcript

Theme Song:

I'm saying hey! Welcome to the Mac Cave Pappy Outstead Hey! Hey! Welcome to the Mac Kappy out! We're gonna drink a fine whiskey now! Smoke a really fine cigar!

Jamie Flanagan: 0:0 It is uh time for Happy Hour, the Man Cave, Happy Hour, Whiskey, Cigars, Spirits, the stories that go along with it, and talk about stories. Uh the VIP of stories and storytellers and and greeters and tour guides. Freddie Johnson, Buffalo Trace, thank you for uh sitting in on the man cave. Thank you for the invite. So I talk about the man cave. We are in like the ultimate, ultimate man cave here in the best kept secret. Tony in the wine garden, big Tony. You guys go way back.

Freddie Johnson: 0:56

Many years, many years. So we were trying to figure that out. I think we're probably getting close to about 13, 14 years now.

Jamie Flanagan: 1:02

So this is so great. I mean, Tony turned this back room, and you were in the back room before when it was just kind of storage and just kind of a man cave. Oh, it was an old dusty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now it's sleek and swank, and the best kept secret. It's not gonna be a best kept secret for long. It's gonna be the coolest speakeasy, one of the coolest ones in the city without a without a doubt. What do you think about that entry coming in? Oh my god. That's the best, yeah. Just you gotta know the code. Gotta know the code. It's uh some skill testing questions. I'm glad the skill testing questions are for on the way in and not on the way out, because we'd be right.

Freddie Johnson: 1:38

Yeah, yeah, we'd be doomed. Because there's uh quite an inventory up there on the bar that we could, you know. I think we get back for a while.

Jamie Flanagan: 1:46

Yeah. So you've been at the distillery since you were five, being a around in the family and enjoying that, and it's it's it it's it's home. What makes it home to you?

Freddie Johnson: 2:00

So it's not the product. I think it's the culture. I think it's the feeling that you get. It's kind of funny. You know how you can go into some place and it just feels like that's the right place to be. Okay. And I think that's the that's the culture of Buffalo Trace. And it's just it's inviting. Yeah. You get a chance to see the product that's being made, but the product, I tell people the product in the bottle is just the byproduct of a good relationship. Oh.

Jamie Flanagan: 2:32

Which is the the liquid in the barrel. That's it. That's gorgeous. You shared earlier, you shared a couple great family stories, and those will be part of this as well.

Freddie Johnson: 2:42

And all of a sudden you meet somebody. And uh I call them memory moments. I remember the first time I met Tony. He was coming in the door of Trace Distilly. I think y'all were doing a barrel peak that day. And they they were telling me, I said, Who is that guy? Who's that guy? They said, That's Big Tony. I said, What? That's Big Tony. I said, You you just gotta need you gotta you gotta know this guy. You gotta meet this guy. People come into your lives in crazy ways, and you don't realize the significance of the moment. I call them coulds and shit. We had a lot of stuff going on, and they were busy trying to do a barrel picks. We started on the first one, keep stuff. Brother was there? Yeah, brother was there, yeah. Third trip down, yeah. Like he's uh but we started we started having some bonds, we started uh getting together, we started looking forward to being able to see each other and just spending time together. Was there anything to be gained by the male? It was just a relationship, it was just a fun moment. So I called them memory moments because there are moments in your lives that something happens and you don't even understand the significance of it until much, much later. And you realize that you've made a difference in someone else's life. So for this evening, I just want to do something special. I asked if everyone has a glass. Doesn't matter what's in it. Oh, we're gonna do a special toast to this charming young man. Here's the way it goes. If you look around and you look at this round, and you look at the folks that we hear, and I remember coming into this round when it was just a vision, and all of this was in disarray. We had barrels all around here, man, barrel here, and Tony kept dragging stuff out. He shared with me his vision. Something happened just a moment ago. Uh was something that was given. And there's a quote in the Bible that says, Old man shall dream dreams, and young men shall see visions. And that evening that we were here, Tony had shared a vision, and it was something that he saw that he could make. It was a dream, it was a passion. And I'm like, okay, will I live long enough to see this happen? But here I am. So here is a toast that we will do in honor of old men that have dreams and young men that have visions. And a toast that is very straightforward. There are tall ships and there are small ships and there are wooden ships. They think the dead ships are friendships and those ships. We shall drink. And the mothers and the others.

Big Tony: 6:10

Alright, here's a little Freddy. Can you come tell everyone here about your chair you tweet? Because part of every bottle that everyone bought today, I would like to donate that to your chair. You're kidding me. Oh, that's it. So everyone that bought a bottle today, part of that bottle, has done to this man's chair and he has done kill, so blah, blah, blah.

Freddie Johnson: 6:49

Alright, so what happened to Freddie was Freddie as a little kid ran around Buffalo Chase distillery. My grandfather had been there for 52 years. My dad had been there, so Randad and Colonel Blanton met on the riverbank behind that distillery. That became part of the distillery for a while. But anyway, that was the fluid. But anyway, they were there together for 52 years, but it's an old Tom Sarria Huffleberg fan kind of a story. Two little kids throwing rocks in the river, and they became friends, and they were together for 52 years. The Scottish and Irish had taken a liking to my grandfather, and they showed him how they made honey barrels of whistle, single barrels that taste exceptionally good. And my grandfather then passed up along to my dad. So my father and Elmer Keely were in the air corps together. Dad was a civil engineer, he made landing strips on remote islands. Elmer was a bombardier, and Elmer's planes landed on Dad's landing strips during the war. And Elmer and my father were at Balport Trace Dysteric 47 years. Elmer, at 90 years old, became one of only three living master distillers to ever have a whiskey name diaperin. And if you enter the hooch, the other two, one was Booker No with Jim being that's Booker's in the little wooden crate. And Jimmy Russell was Wild Turkey, Russell Reserve. And Jimmy Russell's the only one of those three guys that's still alive today. So if you ever get to Kentucky and you get a chance, swing by Wild Turkey, and just tell him that you were up here in Michigan with Freddie, and he mentioned how special he was. So at 90 years old, Elmer gets this award. At ninety-four years old, my dad had become the only living person to first enhance every main barrel that's ever come through Buffalo Tracer Series and Prohibition. And then here I stand. And I had discovered something about good bourbon and good whiskey. They both had a shot of bourbon a day. Elmer, 90 years old, still an ambassador traveling around the world. Dad, 94 years old, still able to horse these 550 pound barrels around. But they had a shot of bourbon today. So I figured this must be the secret to longevity. So you ready? You just got a toast for someone that's going to live to be over 300 feet so my consumption considerably. The journey that I'm taking you on, here's what happens. I call the promises made, promises kept. My father wanted me to work at the distillery with him, like he had done his dad. The bourbon industry had slowed down, so I got recruited by ATT and I moved away. But my father asked me to keep a promise, and the promise was that if I could at some point, would I come back and work with him at the distillery? And I said, Sure, Dad, I'll do that. And his comment was, Well, since you're gonna be coming back, should anything ever happen to me, will you be my caregiver? Promises made, promises kept. I made a promise to my own dad that I didn't understand my promise. If any of you in this room has ever been a caregiver, that's a part of what this is all about. I didn't understand caregiving. I just knew I loved my dad. I didn't understand cancer. I didn't understand chemo. I didn't understand those treatments. I didn't understand what it does what it does to the person who's going through it. But I knew I loved my dad. So I I thought I could take care of my dad and continue with my career. That's what I thought I could do. Parents and loved ones are amazing. They care so much for you that they would not tell you what they're going through because they love you and they don't want to be a burden to you. And one evening one of my trips got cancelled, and I got a chance to spend a weekend with my dad after chemo treatment. And that's when I saw what he was going through. And it broke my heart. I heard him, it woke me up from the bed, and I went in everywhere he was. And I looked at my dad. He was totally he looked like he'd been through a ringer and a old washing machine. And I looked at him and I said, Why didn't you tell me what you were going through? What do your parents always tell you? Oh, it's not so bad. It's not so bad, son. I knew that if it really got bad, you'd take care of me. I said, Dad, this is pretty bad. I said, I'm coming home. I share this with you. Of all the promises and all the gifts I've ever given my father while he was alive, do you know keeping a promise and coming home to be with him meant more to him than anything I've ever ever given you? Fast forward, I'm at the distillery with my dad walking around five minutes to nine. Somebody comes by and says, Have you seen what's going on up in New York? I'm like, No. They said, You should go in and turn on the TV. We go in and we turn on the monitor in a break room, and the planes are flying into the World Trade Center. My father starts crying. He gives me a big hug and he says, I love you, son. I said, I love you too, Dad. And the significance of the moment? I would have been dead. Promises made, promises kept. I kept a promise to my father that I would take care of him. And keeping a promise to my dad, my father saves my life. My commute into New York put me underneath the World Trade Centers when the planes into the building. I come back to take care of my dad. And it takes me out of harm's way. The reason I'm sharing this with you is you made a good and a shared decision this evening. That's why Tony is so important to me, and this morning is so important to me. Because each of you in this room could have been somewhere else. You could have made an excuse and told Tony, Oh, I I would have would have loaded him in there if something came up. But for some reason you're here. Could and should. And the crazy part about life is we never know where life would have placed us had we have not been here in this robe. Let Tony recognize an insignificant accomplishment that he's made. Because sometimes it would have put you in harm's way. But we'll never know. Because we did a should instead of a good. So for me personally, I just want to say thank you for being my friend. Thank you for all the moments that we've shared together. I watched his family grew up. Okay. Uh and I've shared uh we've shared some rather interesting moments and what he went through to get this place to where it is today. And for those of you that were a part of that journey with him, I say thank you for being his friend. And I would like to say thank you for allowing me to be with you this evening. Tony, thank you so much.

Jamie Flanagan: 14:38

Promises made, promises kept. I liked, I like that sentiment that you shared earlier.

Freddie Johnson: 14:44

That really I like so and you know it's really funny. We were back there sipping again, and I read I said, you know, I said, I never really talked about the significance of the cemetery. And my great-grandfather, who was actually born during slavery, is buried in the cemetery, and his wife, um, she was a Blackfoot Indian.

Jamie Flanagan: 15:08

Okay.

Freddie Johnson: 15:09

And my dad wanted me to remember where our family was buried, and he says, and if you could kind of take care of the cemetery, kind of take care of the grave sites. Don't forget, don't forget your past, don't forget your family. Oh, so that's where the Freddy's root beer and the Freddy's sodas and all that comes in. So most people don't realize a dollar out of every case goes to a 501c3 that we set up, and I actually restore old historical sites.

Jamie Flanagan: 15:36

That was because Tony had asked you earlier, can you share a little bit about your charity? That's what you got sidetracked, yeah, telling a good story. Yep, and we didn't get to the charity. So your charity, that was gonna ask you, uh it restores historical sites?

Freddie Johnson: 15:53

Yes. So um I'm doing that one. Um what we're doing there, it's the only site like it in North America that this has ever been done. But we're using uh drones, we're doing we're using geophysical sonar devices, and we're using GPS positioning systems, and we thought there were only like 1,500 bodies in the South Cemetery. Yeah, we've now discovered over 5,000.

Jamie Flanagan: 16:19

Oh my goodness.

Freddie Johnson: 16:20

So, yeah, so we found soldiers from the Civil War, we found slaves, we found um some of the Scottish and Irish immigrants that first came in that settled into the Kentucky area. Wow. Yep, pretty good.

Jamie Flanagan: 16:33

And so you're marking those sites and and and honoring those people?

Freddie Johnson: 16:38

Yeah, so we use uh um New Holland makes a steel plate. It's got numbers on it. So what we're doing is we're using those as positioning systems, okay, and we actually anchor them into the ground so that they're at ground level so we don't have to worry about hitting them with the lawnmowers.

Speaker 04: 16:54

Yeah.

Freddie Johnson: 16:55

And each one of those plates has a number on it. So a person can, if they know who the family member was, they can go in, put in the number, and this GPS unit will tell them exactly where that person is buried in the cemetery. So you don't have to go wandering around the cemetery trying to find mom and dad.

Jamie Flanagan: 17:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's uh we're here in the Metro Detroit area and on the east side. I grew up on the east side in Detroit, and uh the big cemetery over there's Mon Olivet, and people say, Where do you go when you die? Right? And most people say, Oh, we don't have heaven or hell. It's like we go to Six of Mandic.

Speaker 04: 17:27

It's it's where do you go?

Jamie Flanagan: 17:28

That's where you go, right? So in our it's like all our families are there, and we go every good Friday and make sure everything's cleaned and a couple times a year and put on flags and flowers and and yeah.

Freddie Johnson: 17:39

But we're getting better with it. So so the Freddie Soda line is expanding, which gives us greater revenue to do things with. So I was recently down in New Orleans, and remember Thomas Handy was the creator of the first whiskey cocktail, the Sazerac.

Speaker 04: 17:57

Okay.

Freddie Johnson: 17:57

So while down in New Orleans at the Sazrek house, met up with Dickie Brennan, and uh he said, Well, if you can find something down here, you know, maybe I'll partner with you and we'll do something down here. So uh a fellow by the name of Greg Tisch and his wife, um we went cemetery hunting and we found the original gravesite that Thomas Handy was buried. Wow. And it was in disrepair, and we're trying to figure out how do we take some of this 501c3 money and do the same thing in New Orleans that we're doing up here in Kentucky. So the project's expanding.

Jamie Flanagan: 18:33

Yes, that is that's fantastic. And Tony said some money from the bottles that are moving tonight uh are going into that charity.

Freddie Johnson: 18:40

They're going to that 501c3. So we had uh we had some vandals to come in. It's unfortunate about the way life is, but we had put in some pretty cool uh quartz uh lamps that uh basically lit up the monument and the uh POW and the American flag. Vandals came in and took pieces of headstones and smashed all four of the lamps just broke into the shed, so we're having to replace all that right now, but it's all for good cause.

Jamie Flanagan: 19:10

Yep. So how often are you giving tours? How often are you there when people come in? How often are they gonna be able to see them?

Freddie Johnson: 19:18

So we try to do a 50-50, so a couple of weeks out of the month I'm on the road, a couple of weeks I'm actually there giving tours and doing barrel selections with folks.

Speaker 04: 19:27

You are the ambassador. You gotta be everywhere, right?

Jamie Flanagan: 19:31

I'm just Freddie.

Speaker 04: 19:31

You're just Freddie. That's it.

Jamie Flanagan: 19:33

Alright, so Freddie, people come in from all around the world, all around the states, all around the world. What has been your favorite reaction that someone had to be in the distillery? What's your what's been your favorite, you know, their fangirl moment that they had, or what was your favorite experience with people coming in? You ready for this one? Yeah.

Freddie Johnson: 19:54

Has nothing to do with whiskey. Okay, okay. It has to do with I was coming to the gift shop after after doing the barrel selection. There was a little kid there, and he had been in with his dad. And we give samples of the root beer to the kids. And this little kid liked the root beer, and his dad had brought him a bottle of the root beer. And remember the mean jean, mean mean Joe Green commercial where he threw the jerky of so this little kid's walking through and he looks, and my image is on the uh bottle, and the little kid looks at the bottle, looks at me, looks at the bottle, looks at me, and he says, Dad, it's him. It's him, Dad. And I heard the little kid, and I said, Um, I said, Did you like that root beer? And he said, Yeah. And I said, What's your name? He said, Hal. And I said, Well, here, Hal, give me your bottle. So I took his bottle and I signed it and I gave it back to him. The little kid was over the moon. Yeah. And the father said, Now you know he'll never drink that bottle of root beer. I said, You just missed the point. He said, What do you mean? I said, Do you realize for the rest of your son's life, he will always remember being here at Buffalo Trace's Cherry with you when I sign this bottle? I said, You have made a lifetime memory moment with your son that he will never ever forget what you did.

Jamie Flanagan: 21:12

I love that. It's cool. I love that. I don't think I'll ever forget meeting you, Freddie. Thank you for uh sitting down with me. Is there someplace people can go to get more information about your uh is it through the Buffalo Trace website? They can get to the charity.

Freddie Johnson: 21:24

Yeah, you can do it that way, or you can do uh Freddie's historical restoration project. All right. And it'll bring it right up and they'll tell you about the 501c and how you can donate.

Jamie Flanagan: 21:32

All right, Freddie, thank you so much. Oh my gosh, thank you, sir. Cheers, cheers, cheers, cheers.

Freddie Johnson: 21:36

Salute