Loved everything about our trip in KY along the Bourbon Trail. From Buffalo Trace to Makers Mark and every great distillery in between.

Kentucky Bourbon Trail is a Marketing scheme promoting Nine of the numerous Bourbon Distilleries scattered around Kentucky. It is fun as you can pick up a free passport and have it stamped at each distilleries and in return you will get a free T shirt from KY Tourism Centre in Louisville. It is not easy to visit all 9 of them in a day or 2 as most of them closes early, far apart from each other and some involving tour/tasting that last for 2 hours! We ended up just visited half of the distilleries featured in the passport. Jim Bean Evan Williams Town Branch Bourbon Wild Turkey Bourbon Woodford Reserve read more

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As a Kentuckian, my favorite drink is a glass of bourbon. So I just had to do the Bourbon Trail and see all the best Distilleries that make the great Kentucky Bourbon. It was one of the better things we have done in some time. Our favorites were the Woodford Reserve and Maker's Mark Distilleries. All the tours are first class and each guide is very knowledgeable not only about their brands but, about bourbon information and the industry. They each charge a nominal fee to take the tour of their distillery but, it is well worth it especially when you complete the tour and meet in the "tasting room." read more

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My favorite tour! Used the middle weekend of my recent two week course in Ohio to tour the KBT again. Although you can visit all 9 distilleries in two days, I'm glad I took a little bit more time to go on several tours. There are also bus tours so you don't have to worry about drinking and diving. The Woodford Reserve & Four Roses distillery opened up parts of their distillery that I didn't see on earlier tours, while the Maker's Mark distillery had a campus wide renovation. Angel's Envy is the newest distillery to be added to the KBT tour, and they're located in downtown Louisville. Complimentary military admission, always a plus! Will repeat whenever I'm in the area, and definitely recommend! read more

We had a very good time traveling the burbon trails. In 2.5 days we were able to visit: Buffalo Trace, Wild Turkey, Lexington Brewing and Distillery on day 1. On day 2 we visited Four Roses, Marker's Mark, 1792 Distillery, and Willett. And on our thrid hald-day we visited Jim Beam. We drove ourselves between the distilleries as they really don't give you enough to get buzzed on, however this meant that we couldn't enjoy a mixed drink at some bars that some distilleries have onsite. We visited Sunday-Tuesday during early October, which I've heard is the off season but the tours were still mostly packed. We were only alone for our Four Roses Tour. We did make reservations for Lexengton, Willet, and Jim Beam and are glad that we did as all of those tours sold out. Check out my posts for each different distillery but know that we did tasting at some and full tours at others. The fulls tours were far better and they really didn't overlap with the others much. So you're not going to hear the same thing each time. The major thing to keep in mind is that most distilleries offer tours on the hour every hour and they last for about an hour. The distilleries are about 30mins apart. So if your dedicated and keep an eye on the time you can hit one every two hours, especially if you make reservations. read more

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My friends and I had a wonderful time on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail over the July 4th holiday weekend. We managed to not only complete our Kentucky Bourbon Trail Passports, but we also got a few stamps in our "Craft" Bourbon Trail Passport. Here are a few pieces of advice: 1) PLAN! Some tours are only offered at certain times, and they can fill up fairly quickly. Plan ahead and try to make reservations when you can so you don't have a lot of idle time. Some distilleries only allow tastings WITH a tour. 2) Allow yourself 2 or 3 full days in order to do all the tours/tastings. Some distilleries close fairly early and some have very limited hours on Sunday. 2) Pack a cooler with food and water! Sometimes you're literally out in the middle of nowhere. Pack a cooler with food and snacks in case you get hungry on the trail. Our sandwiches and chips came in very handy! Now that that's out of the way, here are my reviews (in the order in which we visited) for the distilleries: Jim Beam - 4 stars Largest operation on the trail. Good tour guide. Nothing was in "production mode" when we were there (summer). Definitely felt commercialized/touristy. Great, 21st century tasting room. Heaven Hill - 4 stars Like the option of having three tours (of varying lengths) to choose from. Informative guide. Good bourbon. Great gift shop. Maker's Mark - 4 stars Beautiful scenery on the "whiskey" river. Good tour guide. Good bourbon. Four Roses - 4 stars Beautiful architecture - somewhat winery/vineyard feel. Decent to good tour. Extremely hefty tasting pours. Good bourbon. FREE Wild Turkey - 3 stars Definitely felt like this was the most commercialized/touristy stop on the trail. However, our tour guide was good. Bourbons were okay. Opportunity to taste two. I picked the "Rare Breed" and the honey one. Rare breed was my favorite. Didn't care for honey at all. FREE Town Branch - 5 stars Didn't do the tour - only the tasting. "Sundown" was excellent. Also, love their beers - although they weren't available for tasting. Staff extremely knowledgeable and friendly. Woodford Reserve - 5 stars By far, my favorite distillery on the KY Bourbon Trail. Love the historic feel. The guide was extremely informative and knowledgeable. Ended up purchasing the Double Oak Bourbon. One word: Delicious. Oh, and the last piece of advice... HAVE FUN! :-) read more

Kentucky Bourbon Trail - Don't forget your passport!!! - Tours Near Me

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I've been wanting to do the Kentucky Bourbon Trail for years. Chose a great springtime in May to do it. The drive is very scenic and shows the true countryside of Kentucky. This is most definitely a photographers dream. This includes the best/main seven distilleries- Four Roses Distillery, Heaven Hill Bourbon Heritage Center, Jim Beam American Stillhouse, Maker's Mark Distillery, Town Branch Distillery, Wild Turkey Distillery, and Woodford Reserve Distillery. There are many other small members of distilleries I wanted to visit and didn't get to. One of them was the Buffalo Trace Distillery, Silver Trail Distillery, and many more. We wanted to make sure we hit the 7 main hot spots. If you plan on going to all of them, make sure to grab a passport. Which you can either have mailed to you or you can pick it up at any distilleries. The program sends free T-shirts to people who mail in a promotional "passport" which has been stamped by all the participating distilleries. If you are visiting the Kentucky area, the Bourbon Trail is a must do on the list. I will finish and visit the smaller distilleries in the near future. I will mostly likely visit my favorite ones again which were Woodford Reserve Distillery, Four Roses and Maker's Mark. Highly recommend! read more

Hard to do all 7 Distilleries due to the long distance (Jim Beam will be the one we just could not get to...). We added a couple of Craft Distilleries which are on a separate tour. Willett Distillery stood out as just the exact opposite of the larger sisters and their sometimes more corporate approach... They all seem to have a similar story to share - All Bourbons are Whiskeys...not all Whiskeys are Bourbons...and other similar statements. But that's ok. If you like Bourbon, you'll enjoy the tours, smells, barrel char, fermentation, Heads, tails, warehouses...Angel's Share! All of it. Using our smartphone, we had no issue finding the Distilleries. Part of the fun was not taking the major roads and actually driving into some beautiful off the path neighborhoods. We discovered several churches and amazing views we never would have found taking the main paths. The major improvements or enhancements needed are just a touch more Bourbon to be provided. I'm willing to pay $7. Make it $10 and add an ounce if possible. Shipping. Clearly they're trying to protect the distributors otherwise there would be a way to ship bottles of Bourbons home. There were quite a bunch of Bourbons you just don't find back at home and I live in a fairly large city. read more

The Kentucky Bourbon Trail: Discover Your "Unbridled Spirit" One Tasting at a Time Most people know that Kentucky and bourbon are synonymous, but, surprisingly, very few know about the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. The Kentucky Bourbon Trail is, in short, a program of the Kentucky Distillers Association (KDA) of participating distilleries to promote the bourbon industry in the state of Kentucky. However, rather than being another state-specific tourism gimmick, the Bourbon Trail (the shortened name is actually a trademark of the KDA) has some depth to it. Whether you consider yourself a novice or a connoisseur on the Bourbon Enthusiast spectrum, you have not truly experienced "America's Official Native Spirit" until you've completed the KBT! / read more

https://hubpages.com/travel/The-Best-Way-to-Complete-the-Kentucky-Bourbon-Trail Here's a blog I wrote with complete details and maps to help you navigate the KBT in 3 days. I hope it helps! Leave me a comment on the blog and let me know what you think! read more

I read past reviews and to update some of the information: 1) Four Roses is no longer free, but it's a mere $5 for the tour and tasting at both locations and you get to keep a good, hefty glass at the end of the tasting. You pay $5 once and it covers both the Cox's Creek and Lawrenceburg locations. 2) You do not have to take the tours to get your passport stamped. The tours do get redundant because the basic process is the same because of bourbon laws, and there were brands that I didn't care enough about to do a tour. You can walk in, find anyone behind a register, and ask for a stamp and you can walk out. 3) The distilleries vary in their tour prices, but the average range is $10-$14. 4) Buffalo Trace is not on the KY bourbon trail, but worth a visit if you like their bourbon or if you want to snag a bottle of hard-to-find Blantons. 5) There are 10 distilleries on the trail. They recently added Angel's Envy. If you don't do every tour, you can finish all 10 distilleries in 2-3 days. I agree with another reviewer to bring a cooler with food and water, but all distilleries do provide water during the tasting. We did peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You don't really need a dd because the tasting portions are very small, about 0.3 oz. Every distillery will explain the basic distilling process. The difference among them is to learn the specific history and uniqueness of their brand. Prices of the bourbon is not always cheaper than in stores. Make a plan because hours vary and several close at 3pm. If you do a tour consecutively, expect to do a tour every 2 hours. e.g. Took Angel's Envy Tour at 10am, didn't make it to the next closest distillery tour until 12pm. Some of the distilleries are way out there (hence the food we brought along). I spent 3 full days there and was still able to take the Louisville Slugger tour, wander around the city a bit, visit Churchill Downs, and go find and drink the best mint juleps and old fashioneds. read more

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We did all nine distilleries in two days. If you want to get them all done in two days, I would recommend starting on the Lexington side & finishing in the Louisville area because Louisville has the Jim Beam Urban Stillhouse that is open until 10pm so you can finish late. Also, the KY Visitors Center is in Louisville so you can get your free t-shlrt for visiting all the distilleries right there without having to send for it by mail. Keep in mind that all the other distilleries close early, so you need to get going early. You don't need to do a full tour to get a stamp. I'd recommend doing just the tasting tour when you can because the full tours are fairly repetitive. Woodford, Four Roses, Wild Turkey, and the Jim Beam Urban Stillhouse all allow tasting-only tours. I thought Woodford had the best tasting. While they only had two bourbons to taste, they gave you a bigger taste of each, the presentation was classy, the bourbon chocolate was a nice touch, and the pourer was the most informative. The full tour of Maker's Mark was my favorite tour, although I did not do the full tour at some of the places to compare. Cool tip: One of the distilleries told us that a new law was passed so that the distilleries can serve cocktails. While this law hasn't taken effect yet, it will be a lot of fun when it does! read more

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I'm a Kentuckian, born and bred... true blue through and through. When this Kentucky Bourbon Trail craze started, I was honestly a late bloomer. My dad's drink of choice was always Makers Mark, but as a child, I had no idea that the stuff was made right here in KY. I'd never even tasted the stuff until visiting the distillery, to be quite honest. In 2013, I decided to start this thing that all of the tourist call the KBT. That's right, I can travel within minutes and hit several of the KBT stops... STAYCATION! My first stop started right in my hometown, at Alltech. The first time that I visited, I hadn't a clue of what the bourbon trail consisted of, but it was neat to learn about the Irish family and this place that they established close to downtown Lexington. They have a niche for brewing good beers, but their perfection of distilling bourbon can't be denied. http://www.yelp.com/biz/alltech-lexington-brewing-and-distilling-co-lexington-fayette?hrid=DoEfN01SuiYADlqiivINbg My second stop was Buffalo Trace. It opened in 1787 and set the bar high in terms of pure Kentucky distillery comparisons. It didn't feel like a tourist trap... it's was more of an authentic representation of the distillery process. I later found out that the they host many event through out the year... I've yet to check out the events, but it's on my agenda. http://www.yelp.com/biz/buffalo-trace-distillery-frankfort?hrid=U99yZBMZHX3OTKhw8eix Forth stop http://www.yelp.com/biz/woodford-reserve-distillery-versailles?hrid=qbyk7rFYpxLKlxHzApUzow very commercialized, with the KY scenery. I'm not going to list them all, as it's still a work in progress. But one word of advice is to hold on to your distillery passport. When I first started the trail, I opted for the KBT app, but after the forth stop, it stopped working and still doesn't work. read more

We only went to 2 distilleries on the trail (and one that isn't), and that was a whole day. Plan for at least 3 days, maybe 4 to hit them all. The annoying part is that tours are on the hour, every hour at each place. If you miss it, then you're stuck waiting for the next one. Plus, the distilleries are spaced apart, with pockets of close ones. For example, Four Roses, Woodford Reserve, and Wild Turkey are all very closely located. I will say that after two tours, I'm not sure I needed any more. I understood the bourbon making process at that point, so everything afterwards was just seeing how each distillery did the process a little differently. I will say that of the tours, Woodford Reserve was my favorite and was the most informational. I wouldn't worry too much about the tastings affecting driving. The tastings are small, and if you're on a 1.5 hour tour, drink water, and have a small snack, you should be fine. read more

If you like bourbon, you'll have a great time doing the KY Bourbon Trail. My husband and I just finished this month with all 8 that were on the trail at the time we started it back in May. (They've since added a 9th). You want to pick up the passport at your first stop, and you get it stamped at each one. It's free! You don't have to do a tour or buy anything to get your stamp, but part of the fun is taking a tour at each one. When you get done, you mail it in and they send you a shirt. We're waiting on ours now, but we saw one at one of the stops and they're pretty cool. It took us 3 different weekends to complete the trail. It could certainly be done a little faster if you have more than 2 days at a time to work on it. The distilleries are pretty spread out, and some are busier than others. It takes some planning to coordinate everything, but it's well worth it. We enjoyed some exceptional tours, tasted products we probably would not have tried elsewhere, and we brought home several bottles of excellent bourbons! read more

I've been on a few distillery tours before but never done more than one a day. That makes me a jerk. This is the perfect weekend get-a-way for anyone in Cincinnati. An easy drive, beautiful state and history. My review of the trail is mostly the website of the organization that rounds up these distilleries. The website is great. The maps were ok. The website gives a few tidbits and it encouraged us to do it when we had to drop off our oldest daughter in central Kentucky and had some time on our hands. Go do the trail. One work of warning: my favorite distillery - Buffalo Trace - is not listed. It's in Frankfort not far from the others. Make a detour and hit this place. I'll do a review of it on it's own but it's the best distillery tour I've ever been on with the best people. I'm assuming their not being listed is something to do with money. It's a shame because Buffalo Trace would represent them so well. I'll do a review of our tour of Wild Turkey - the trail should boot them off. They're an embarrassment. Don't go to Wild Turkey - their tour and people are as bad and harsh as that stuff they sell. read more

Do it!!!!! If you like burbon it's worth it. The tours at each distillery are very informative on not only the process of the making of the burbon but also the history of each individual distillery. We did all 9 in 3 days (with planning and staying on a schedule) and each tour was different and unique. They didn't get boring and each kept my attention with it own unique history. As a added bonus you get a free tee shirt after completing the trail which is pretty awesome as well. If your looking for something to do over a short break, this is a great experience, highly recommend it! Who knows it may even lead to some tours that aren't on the burbon trail (I recommend Buffalo Trace). read more

Wife and I had a blast doing the KY Bourbon Trail. We were able to complete the trail in a few months, for all 8 (at the time) distilleries. Now it seems they've added Bulleit in Louisville. Shame we missed that one. Saw some beautiful places, tasted some excellent bourbon, bought many bottles, and returned home happy. This will take quite a bit of time planning however. This is not a quick weekend trip. All distilleries are dispersed far apart in KY. You will want to do about 3 a day, more than that can be quite difficult to manage, and at that point, the bourbon taste all starts running together. Give yourself time to enjoy what each place has to offer. Can't go wrong! read more

Well worth doing. Everything from small craft distilleries to large production houses. A full tour will take at least three days. Plan a week to see some of the many attractions and restaurants along the way. read more

I had a great time touring the bourbon trail. I would suggest you try to do the entire trail over a couple days. The samples are great, but don't mix well with driving to all the distilleries. Some of the stops have quite a few miles in between them, so plan for a long day and bring some munchies. If you're new to KY, it's a great way to get some area history, all the tour guides were very informative. read more

Expensive, time-consuming, and unnecessarily rigid was my overall impression of the trail distilleries. Either they haven't figured out how to be customer friendly or they don't care and they have deduced a brilliant marketing scheme anyway. My primary complaints are having to pay to take their redundant here's how bourbon is made tours at nearly every distillery and having to pay for and take the tours in order to taste tiny little bourbon samples at nearly every distillery(at between $7 & $9 per adult per tour). We already spent money in KY on gas, meals, evenings out, and hotels over two days, must we really shell over more than $200 for four of us to also take mandatory tours at multiple distilleries? We decided before we left home we would not. We've taken a tour at another distillery already. We know how bourbon is made thank you. None of them do it that different from the other. The "reasons" the totally unfriendly and unaccommodating first line of public contact employees at the distilleries gave varied wildly - room size, building code, it's the weekend, proximity to other distilleries and state law that required minimum times between tastings (so the miniscule droplets of alcohol in our systems wouldn't apparently make us into raving drunks along the way) and the totally unhelpful answer of just plain, no you can only taste if you take the tour (given with a snobby, superior, snippy, dismissive how dare you even suggest otherwise look from them). If the state law excuse was remotely true, it's bizarre. In two cases, the distilleries were our first stops of the day, in two others, they were after long lunches and hours after our last tiny tastings, and several more were after driving a fair distance from the last one. Why would your policy presume a customer walking in the door is reeling in from over-imbibing (which by the way is impossible on your tiny 2 - 4 samples per distillery) at another distillery and must take a repetitive 45 minute to 1 1/2 hour tour before tasting your product? It defies logic. If you're afraid someone is over-imbibing, then handstamp them with a date/time at tasting tables so you know when they last had a measly less than a shot of bourbon total. We've had more alcohol at communion than we did in a tasting session. Frankly we heard so many lame excuses we ended up not believing any of them. Four Roses, Jim Beam, and Buffalo Trace let you taste without a tour. Patronize them. Heaven Hill, Alltech Town Branch, Maker's Mark, Wild Turkey, Willett, and Woodfield Reserve did not (Woodfield Reserve used to but changed their policy to this one). Skip them. All of them had empty tasting rooms between tours ending there, most plainly visible from where we were. Distilleries could make even MORE money if they'd taken us up on our offer to pay just to taste (none would even consider it) between tours. You'd think that would appeal to their capitalist zeal. The Trail marketing encourages you to tour them all but buries on their skimpy on info website in the FAQ section (and post it nowhere else) that distilleries charge and tastings are at the end of the mandatory tours only. Also, Trail, we do and did spend lots of money on bourbon at distilleries where we could taste the product and where our business was appreciated and we were made to feel welcome, not as some sort of petty criminals for even offering to PAY to just taste. It certainly can't be financial need. People are buying bourbon and anything else the distilleries slapped their logos on in their gift shops non-stop. Heaven Hill's you can only buy there bourbons ran an obscene $129 - $400 while Four Roses had perfectly good exclusive ones for under $65 and their tours, which were optional, were also free. Guess where all four of us spent the most money after tasting? Right - Four Roses, where we were gladly welcomed and made to feel so. Get it, Trail? The customer is always right in retail, or don't any of you have a retail background or do you just not care as you ride the wave of bourbon popularity? Make your policies and member distilleries public staff more customer friendly and you'll provide all with a much better experience and you and your member distilleries will make lots more money. read more

I'm a huge craft beer "snob" but getting more into bourbon, and have gained a good amount of knowledge. This was my first trip to KY, and solely for finding bourbon I can't get in Ohio. After hitting six distilleries, I went home with only one bottle, that I later found at the Liquor Barn for $3 cheaper. Maybe it was just bad timing, but only one of the distilleries offered something that I couldn't get at the local store in KY. Willett did have a few high end bottles, way more than I wanted to spend, but that was it. I was hoping to land more. If you want to do tours, then it will take you days. But if just shopping, we hit six within 4 hours, easily. They are pretty much all the same. Gift shops are comparable to the brand, with Beam being huge, and Willett being very much,much smaller. Samples are limited to two very,very small offerings, and I get it. You shouldn't be getting hammered. read more