Buffalo Trace Distillery
Free House
In the early days of whiskey production, a tax was levied on the product as soon as it left the still. Knowing that bourbon improved through aging, distilleries convinced the government that the tax should not fall due until the maturation process had ended. The government relented and gave distilleries two years before the tax would fall due. If, at the end of two years, the distilleries did not have a customer for the whiskey, they had to pay the tax. At this point the bourbon was removed from the bonded warehouse and stored in the free house, so named because the whiskey was now "free" of tax.
Courtesy hmdb.org
