A Spirited Week on the Bourbon Trail

On By Suzanne@PictureRetirementIn travel, USA

Over the years, Malcolm and I have discovered a few destinations that find their way into our hearts. Louisville, Kentucky, is one of those. We go for the famous Bourbon Trail, but there is more to this region than bourbon. People who live and work here seem happy, unhurried, and genuinely kind. They say ‘yes ma’am’, ‘no ma’am’, and ‘how can I help you?’ with a smile. It isn’t surprising that locals refer to the burn in your chest after a sip of good bourbon as ‘the Kentucky hug.’

We have now visited Kentucky in three seasons – Spring, Summer, and Fall. The first time we visited Kentucky was in May of 2021. The fifteen-day road trip from Florida to Rhode Island included four nights in Louisville. It was just enough to whet our appetite for more. We wrote about that trip in Miles of Smiles… The second time we visited Louisville was in August of 2024. Our focus was purely on the Bourbon Trail, and you can read about that trip, along with our comprehensive distillery reviews here. If you are planning a trip to Kentucky, I highly recommend reading both of these posts. You will understand what I mean when I say Kentucky isn’t just for bourbon lovers.

The leaves were glorious, but beware, rainfall is unpredictable this time of year. While it didn’t alter our schedule, it did make using my camera challenging. Most of the photos included here were taken with my cellphone.

Bourbon Trail 2025

There are lots of ways to ‘do the bourbon trail,’ but we think our formula works, especially for folks of a certain age. We visited a total of six distilleries in five days, incorporating downtime and a couple of tours beyond bourbon. Logistics can be challenging, so we suggest making a list of your favorite bourbon distilleries and plotting them onto a map to check driving distances. Take a look at the webpage for each distillery and make a reservation in advance. Walk-ins are accepted at some locations, but we highly advise reserving your tour to avoid disappointment.

Include distilleries that offer an ‘experience’, such as the Chihuly exhibit at Maker’s Mark, or the old castle and sunken gardens at Castle & Key. Distilleries offer tours tailored to their facility, and while you will receive repetitive information about the process of bourbon making at most of them, some go beyond the basics and include a barrel filling demonstration, bottling plant tour, label making, or a walk through an aromatic rick house. Those additions can take a tour from good to outstanding.

How the tasting is offered can make a difference, too. At Willett, the tour and tasting happen in tandem, with neatly staged servings around every corner. At Four Roses (we toured there last year), sippy cups of bourbon cocktails are offered at the beginning of the tour, and at Woodford Reserve, participants are invited into a beautiful, private tasting room. Chocolate bourbon balls are served with the last tasting. Tastings vary from 3 to 6 glasses, with about three sips per glass, so don’t worry about over-indulging. Of course, it’s up to you to use your ‘linger longer’ time responsibly.

Most tours include not only the process of bourbon making, but also the history behind the product. Some bourbons have been in families for generations, while others are mass-produced by big companies. You might think that bourbons are all created equally, but that isn’t the case. Just like wine production, there are many variables. Grain recipes, barrel char, added flavors, water source, and aging make each product distinct.

Day 1 Willett – Bardstown, KY

We have toured this distillery twice for a couple of reasons. 1) Malcolm likes the brand, and 2) it’s a good tour. The tour guide begins with the family’s history of ownership, as we sip the first of several samples. Next, we move into the fermenting room, where the grain ‘recipe’ is explained. The room includes several steel tanks filled with mash at various stages of fermentation. The mixture might look bubbling hot, but it’s actually a chemical reaction of the yeast fermenting sugars and making alcohol. We are invited to taste the mash inside the tank. I pass, but Malcolm puts in a finger and exclaims, “sweet”. We take a moment to admire the potstill, which is a perfect juxtaposition to the modern tanks and then walk across the yard to the rick house, where filled barrels are received and stored. The aroma is thick with hints of vanilla and caramel – just my cup of tea. Lighting in the rick house is optimal for portrait photos, btw. Of course, another tasting awaits. The tour ends in the gift shop, where I wander around, and Malcolm buys a couple of bottles that he can’t get at home.

If you time it right, you can make a reservation to have a meal here. There is also a nice outside patio available for enjoying a few post-tour cocktails. Visit the Willett page here to plan your tour.

Day 2 Maker’s Mark – Loretto, KY

Whether you like this brand of bourbon or not, do not miss this tour. Maker’s Mark is a sprawling complex of coordinated buildings that blend artfully into the environment. In fact, everything about this facility is designed to stimulate the senses, including the current glass exhibit. From rustic wooden mash tanks to a massive piece of Chihuly glass suspended from the rick house ceiling, this place is a photographer’s dream. Malcolm says the booze is first-rate, too. We timed this visit to include lunch (no reservation required) and had a hearty lamb stew with a basket of homemade bread. Perfect for a rainy, cooler-than-expected day.

Plan your visit here. Note: You may visit the grounds and have lunch at the cafe without purchasing a tour ticket.

Day 2 Afternoon Kentucky Cooperage – Lebanon, KY

Obviously, barrels are essential to the bourbon-making process, as this is where the majority of the flavor comes from. This cooperage is the place to see production up close, including a dramatic demonstration of the fiery barrel char. We were not allowed to take photos, but this 60-Minutes segment filmed at the cooperage we visited is on point with what we witnessed first-hand. I hope you will take the time to watch this fascinating process. And, by all means, make a reservation to visit the cooperage on your Bourbon Trail tour. We booked the ‘Life of a Barrel’ tour and had a wonderful experience.

Day 3 – Buffalo Trace – Frankfort, KY

Buffalo Trace is a beautiful old facility. There are lots of moving parts to see up close. The barrels on the conveyor belt in the first picture below have been aged in a rick house and are now ready for bottling. The worker is using a drill to remove the ‘bung’, or plug that seals the barrel. The contents spill into the conveyor belt and flow to the bottling facility. We were not allowed into the bottling facility at this distillery, but we did see it in operation at others.

The workers in the second photo are hand boxing bottles of Blantons, which is one of the Buffalo Trace brands. This brand has the coveted horse and jockey bottle stoppers that are collectable. Each stopper is embellished with one of eight letters that spell BLANTONS. When lined up, the stoppers depict a different stage of a horse race. The workers were packing bottles with the bottle stopper N on the day we visited.

Buffalo Trace is also home to the famous and very expensive Pappy Van Winkle bourbon. We saw the small rick house where bottles are aged, but we were not offered a taste, or even the opportunity to purchase this bourbon at the distillery. It is in limited production, and available only at retailers who often create lotteries for their customers making it possible to charge extravagant prices. Supply and demand…

Day 3 Afternoon – Bulleit

The tour at Bulleit was our least favorite experience, but that makes sense, given how massive and modernized this corporate-owned operation is. I love to see products come to life through a tried and true process, but this one was absent the ‘heart’ that other tours present. The tasting was a bit gimmicky, with sip &sniff being the order of the day. The premise here is that your taste buds will sense what your nose has smelled after sniffing the sensory containers in front of the bourbon sample. Fragrances inside the containers included vanilla, chamomile, grapefruit, and white oak.

Day 4 – Winstar Horse Farm – Versailles, KY

Your visit to Kentucky is not complete without a scenic drive to a horse farm. Fortunately, we had a perfectly sunny, cool day when we toured Winstar Horse Farm. If you’ve ever watched the Kentucky Derby, you have an idea of the awesome experience we had up close with these former champions. While these stallions collectively hold many titles, their current one is ‘stud.’ Owners fly their mares in from all over the country to mate with one of these beauties. Bloodlines are important in the horsey world, and fortunes are made with the right combination. It’s quite an operation, with live-in vets, a horsey convalescent center, birthing center, and miles and miles of beautiful pasture.

Fun facts: The horses stabled here are typically jointly owned by the owner of the farm and other investors. The Jocky Club limits mares bread to a single stallion at 140 per year. Annual revenue for this farm is reported in excess of $100M per year.

The horse we are standing with is Two Phils. He came in second in the Kentucky Derby in 2023 and retired to Winstar Farms after sustaining an injury. He bred a total of 260 mares in his first two breading seasons.

Country Grammer
14.9 million in career earnings
His top selling colt went for 1M
In 2025 four of his yearlings sold for $1M each. He sired 122 foals in 2025
Tisnow – The only horse in history to win the Breeder’s Cup twice

The grounds of this farm are extensive, and we felt like VIPs as our tour guide made stops throughout the property, allowing us to pet new foals or pose under a blaze of orange color. For more information and tour tickets, visit their website here.

Day 5 – late morning, Castle & Key, Frankfort, KY

This is another ‘destination’ distillery, and you won’t need a tour ticket to visit the shop and enjoy the grounds. The word Castle in the name, along with online photos, piqued our interest, and although Malcolm isn’t fond of their products, we did enjoy our tour, tasting, and lounging by the Springhouse with a cocktail on a beautiful day. The facility has been resurrected in recent years and released its first clear spirits in 2018. Read the history of this unique place here. This was a well-organized tour that explored all facets of the operation.

Day 5 – afternoon, Woodford Reserve, Frankfort, KY

From its cypress fermentation tanks, fragrant aromas, and holy grail of potstills, this distillery is a living feast for the senses. On the National Historic Registry, several historic buildings blend seemlessly with a modern welcome center. Shuttle busses transport small groups from the ticket counter to the hub of the operation using knowlegable guides to inform and entertain. This tour covers the entire process of bourbon making and offers a lovely stroll throughout the historic grounds.

The wall behind Malcolm and me in the photo below is made entirely of staves (wooden planks used to make bourbon barrels). It is just one great example of how to repurpose these otherwise discarded items.

Favorites emerged. While we suggest visiting all the distilleries on your list, we highly recommend our two favorites: Maker’s Mark and Woodford Reserve. These tours are educational, entertaining, and visually pleasing in every way. Past favorites have included Angel’s Envy and Michter’s, which are both located in downtown Louisville. We did not revisit those, but we still recommend a tour and tasting at both distilleries.

I am sure this will not be our last visit to Louisville, as there are many small-batch operations and other notable distilleries to discover. The smell of bluegrass in the spring, colorful foliage in the fall, caves and waterfalls, miles upon miles of horse ranches, excellent museums, and food – let us not forget the food. Can you say Hot Brown??

Bonus points to all who reached the end of this post. Extra bonus points for anyone who can tell me what a rick house is? How about a stave, or a bung?

Seriously, thank you for reading. We had a wonderful time playing ‘tour guide’ to our travel buddies. In five days, their only complaint was that we eat too often. We reminded them that there was a lot of drinking involved.

Cheers!

Sharing with Terri’s Sunday Stills – Leaf Peeping

34 thoughts on “A Spirited Week on the Bourbon Trail”

  1. While I like bourbon I don’t drink it often and I know little about it. I would certainly find one of these tours interesting but I’m not sure I’m so keen I would do this many, however I did enjoy reading about them. How do you manage the driving when participating in these tastings? When we’ve been to similar places (vineyards in Chile, or a rum distillery in Jamaica, for instance) it has always been with a guide who did the driving, leaving us free to drink!

    Like

    Reply

    1. Hi Sarah, it sounds like a lot, but limiting to two distilleries per day, with a maximum of three sips per glass and an average of 3-5 glasses per tasting (which we rarely finish) doesn’t add up to a lot of bourbon. Starting with a hearty breakfast helps, as does all the walking we do on the tours. That is the main reason we feel 4 to 5 days in Louisville is about right for spacing tours properly and leaving time to do other things besides distilleries. The experiences start to blend when you attempt too many in a single day.

      Like

      Reply

  2. Linda and I have been visiting the Bourbon Trail for many years and now focus on the small batch distilleries. Your blog brought back great memories and inspired us to plan another trip. My only advice is to stay in the local BnB’s and experience the culture as well as the bourbon. Linda has accumulated almost all of the Blanton’s jockeys. She needs one more N to complete her set. I will admit we cheated and bought a few of them on our last visit to the gift shop.

    Like

    Reply

    1. John, we stayed 2 nights in Bardstown and had lunch at a great little cafe in Shelbyville (McKinley’s Bread Shop), drinks at Volstead Bourbon Lounge (highly recommend), and dinner at The Old Talbot Tavern. My girlfriend and I walked the main street shops (I can see why Linda loves it here). We had originally planned to stay in Bardstown for the full 5 nights, but Malcolm wanted our friends to experience The Brown Hotel. Staying there meant that we had to drive longer distances each day, but it was worth it. Talk about local color. Have you guys eaten at Wallace Station on the Old Frankfort Pike?

      Good to hear from you. Hope all is well.

      Like

      Reply

      1. The Brown is a great hotel. When Linda was a little girl in Louisville her dream as to stay there. We have since fulfilled that dream for her. But I have to admit that for her recent 60th high school reunion we stayed at a Marriott in the suburbs.

        We have not tried Wallace Station, but will do so on our next trip.

        Tell Malcolm the challenge is to find the out of the way micro-distilleries. One we found last time was in a farmers barn. The tasting was straight from the barrel- basically moonshine.

        Castle & Key is a great story. We stumbled on it while staying in Frankfort for a family visit. They were still in the renovation stage and were distilling gin to pay the bills. I don’t drink gin but this was actually enjoyable.

        We are fine.

        Next trip is February to Mexico City to visit the Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe. May we leave for a cruise around UK and Norway.

        Liked by 1 person

  4. This post is singing my hubby’s song, Suzanne! Kentucky bourbon, yes please! I’m not much of a bourbon drinker, but the process looks fascinating and it has a long history. Kentucky is a state I long to visit, especially to see the Derby some day. That whole area is also know for it’s autumn splendor! Wonderful!

    Like

    Reply

  5. There is certainly plenty to see on the Bourbon trail. From your description it sounds like a pleasant trip. If this comment goes through I’ll be very happy because I’ve been having problems for several months.

    Like

    Reply

  6. Bourbon with a trace of Buffalo doesn’t sound very tasty to me! I’ve been to Kentucky and remember it as being quite beautiful but at the time, I was a bit too young for bourbon tasting! Sounds like you really packed in a lot!

    Like

    Reply

  7. I love the idea of combining a bourbon tasting with an experience so it becomes completely immersive. One a day would do me I think with lots of eating in between! Yes, I think I could handle that lol. Such a fabulous guide you’ve compiled here Suzanne and I learnt a lot, Louisville does sound wonderful. Cheers to new tastes, destinations and experiences!

    Like

    Reply

  8. I’m not a big fan of bourbon but it looks like there are lots of things to do beyond swirling and sipping. I’ve gone to more wine tastings than I can count, toured a rum distillery in Cuba, and a mezcal distillery in Oaxaca… perhaps it’s about time to check out Louisville and the Bourbon Trail! Thanks for taking us along!

    Like

    Reply

  10. Suzanne,

    One of the memorable highlights of my life was attending the Kentucky Derby and visiting the Maker’s Mark Distillery where I became a Maker’s Mark Ambassador. Unfortunately, I have not visited other distilleries, but Louisville is only a three-hour drive for us. Your post is as thorough a guide as it gets, so I’m saving it for a future tour, starting with Woodford Reserve–my favorite Bourbon. Thanks for taking us along. Cheers! Joe

    Like

    Reply

  11. Thanks for the detailed information! I don’t drink bourbon, but I’d love to visit Winstar horse farm. And after reading this post, I think I’d enjoy touring the area even so. Kentucky is so pretty, and not all that far from where I live.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Ann, there are lots of scenic drives in this area, along with several horse farms that offer tours. Winstar is a breeding farm, so you will get to see many former champions, and depending on the time of year, many of their offspring. It is an impressive operation and beautiful grounds.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  14. An excellent write-up and account of the Bourbon trail. What a fun way to learn about the area, see the countryside and get to taste so many varietals. You must be an expert in the bourbon process now.

    You asked about the stave – I noticed it was part of the bourbon barrel – I remembered that because it is also the name of a wooden shingle in Norway used in the churches.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Amanda, thank you for your thoughtful and thorough comment. How interesting that a stave is also the name of a shingle. It makes perfect sense. I am far from an expert, but I do love learning and find the entire process fascinating. Thanks for stopping by. I’m glad you found the video enlightening.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  17. Hello – and wow, did I enjoy this post.

    In fact, I was reminded that “this is why i Love blogging” – because we get quality posts like this that are often better than professional journalism. And seriously, Kentucky’s tourism site should link your blog – because this is a masterful post. I did not go back to read the other one yet, but I am bookmarking this one because you have given me many ideas for when we visit.

    Oh and a top takeaway for folks was the reminder to make reservations when possible. You noted “we highly advise reserving your tour to avoid disappointment” – and this point cannot be stressed enough because it is a good idea to consider whenever traveling. For example, we went to hot springs, AR – and it was off season so we knew it would be slow. Well the lady at the bath house was so snotty about us not making reservations. It was half empty and she almost turned us away. She then sent us to the lady in the shop – who was like “Of course we have room today, go back in and….” we ended up having a great time that day, but I learned the lesson about always making a res if possible. Just in case.

    —

    I also appreciated how you section this off and gave us succinct info for the distilleries and really appreciate posts like this because they are a gift for travelers.

    xxx

    yvette

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a reply to Terri Webster Schrandt Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.