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April 22, 2026 marks the 1-year anniversary of my first day of work in the Archives of Buffalo Trace Distillery. When I first happened upon the unassuming Linked-In post, I threw my name in as a last-ditch effort to find summer employment. My meticulously written personal statements had failed to secure me interviews for previous positions, causing my confidence to waiver. With little thought of the job being an actual possibility, I sent in my resume and promptly forgot about the whole affair.
My surprise at receiving an interview was matched only by the surprise of receiving an offer. The official “phone call” occurred as I walked through UofL’s campus. Needless to say, I elicited stares as I jumped in the air and pumped my arms in excitement while still remaining absolutely silent on my end of the call.
Over the last twelve months, my job has been a blessing. Starting only a week after the record-breaking April flood of 2025, I came at a very unique point in time of the Distillery. The once full archives had been emptied to save artifacts from flood water and maintenance workers were still cleaning up river muck. Regardless, I was ecstatic to begin. Since then, I have done everything from sorting artifacts in an underground cave to hiking through the woods in search of a historic photo location. When people ask me to describe my job, I am always left a little baffled. Some days see me sitting at my desk doing research to validate marketing claims while others involve transporting hundred year old artifacts in my Toyota Corolla. When entering the office, I know anything can happen and any artifact may walk through the door.
Working in an Archives has taught me many things, but the biggest lesson was something
I had to unlearn. Clutter has always been a pet peeve of mine and I work hard to reduce the
amount of “junk” laying around my living space. This mindset must change however when the
purpose of your job is to store that “junk” and keep it stable for years to come. On my first day, I
remember sorting through a filing cabinet in the Master Distiller’s office. Among the various
distilling reports and temperature graphs, dilapidated mailers advertising security equipment lay
interspersed. My first instinct was to set them aside in the trash pile, but I was corrected by my
boss about Archival scope. Even if something seems like junk, it can be used to ascertain vital
information from different eras of the distillery. In this capacity, we are always very happy to
take junk off other’s hands. Old paperwork, empty bottles, and unused labels all serve a purpose
and are kept in Archives. Just this last week, we received a request for a map of the distillery’s
office building that we were unable to fulfill because of insufficient records. Two days later, I
was poking through the post-flood renovated Archives Office when I noticed a crumbled up map
left in a trash pile by the construction crew. While the construction crew had considered it to be
trash, the crumbled map was exactly what we had been missing.
Despite the four hours of driving it adds to my week, working at Buffalo Trace Distillery
has been an extremely rewarding experience. I cannot imagine my college trajectory if I hadn’t
sent in my application on a whim. As I’m planning to stay until graduation, I am honored to pass
my 1-year anniversary and excited for what the next year will bring.
Jacob is a McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville in the class of 2027. He is studying history with minors in political science and Spanish.