Kentucky Bourbon Trail

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 BeanEvan WilliamsTown Branch BourbonWild Turkey BourbonWoodford Reserve

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."

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!

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.

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 starsLike the option of having three tours (of varying lengths) to choose from. Informative guide. Good bourbon. Great gift shop. Maker's Mark - 4 starsBeautiful scenery on the "whiskey" river. Good tour guide. Good bourbon. Four Roses - 4 starsBeautiful architecture - somewhat winery/vineyard feel. Decent to good tour. Extremely hefty tasting pours. Good bourbon. FREEWild Turkey - 3 starsDefinitely 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. FREETown 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 starsBy 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! :-)

https://hubpages.com/travel/The-Best-Way-to-Complete-the-Kentucky-Bourbon-TrailHere'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!

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.

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!

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!