A Taste of Kentucky: 7 Must-Visit Distilleries on the Bourbon Trail

My buddy Jerry and I went to Louisville and went to the Bourbon Trail which was an amazing experience. I feel like I learned so much about bourbon in a short amount of time and of course I had a lot of fun drinking that much bourbon. We hit four distilleries in the Louisville area and then another three out near Frankfurt. This video is a recap of the differences between those seven distilleries and my personal preference for the top three. Let's start with one of the more popular brands, Buffalo Trace. The distillery is on a sprawling historical campus. Records indicate that distilling started on this site back in 1775 and more recently the Sassarac company purchased the distillery in 1992 and introduced its namesake bourbon Buffalo Trace in 1999. I found Buffalo Trace to have many theme park elements, the meticulous grounds, the security gate parking, the wristband check-in and most of all the giant gift shop. Now there were three standouts from the tour. First they have the smallest brick house in the world. It only stores one barrel at a time and it's currently aging the eight millionth barrel of Buffalo Trace. Two, we did see a toad with a Van Winkle label on it and they have a visual showing the evaporation that happens in a barrel after 18 years. It's much more air than it is whiskey at that point and that's why Van Winkle is so expensive. And the third is we got to see the Blanton's bottling wine in production. Now the tasting at Buffalo Trace was cheap and rushed. It was served in plastic cups but hey it was free and we did get root beer and cream that paired well. At the end of the trip I bought five models on this tour. Two Buffalo Trace, two Weller and a Cream. Next let's talk about Angel's Envy. They're located in downtown Louisville right in the bourbon district. The architecture for this place is really cool. It's a fun vibe of place to be. Now they have a lot of hands-on elements of their tour which I just found the structure of this place to be very enticing. They did a great way of showing the way that different grains can mix by having a real pie chart or a grain chart in this case. And we also got a chance to taste the mash straight out of one of the fermentation tanks. Oh boy that mash is tart. Angel's Envy specialty is they are a finisher distillery. So once they've aged the bourbon they finish it off in another barrel. Most of the time they do their bourbon in pork wine and they do their rye in rum cask. That gives their bourbon and rye a very smooth very nice tasting pleasant taste. Because those are the only two real products they have the tasting was limited. We tried both of those with water and with ice. We hit the bar after the tour and I have to say this was the highlight of the tour to me. They have great drinks and a wonderful vibe. I love the Angel's Envy logo and I bought a couple of picks with the wings on it but I didn't buy any of the bourbon because it's all readily available back at home at my local liquor store. Next up is the Stetzel Weller distillery located just outside Louisville to the southwest. The tour starts with the tale of the five keys which is a sign of hospitality and the logo for blade and bow. Now Stetzel Weller is no longer a producing facility so this was a historical tour that at times felt a little bit like a ghost town. But what was cool was the tasting was progressive so we tried different whiskeys at different places along the tour. Here's where it felt a little like a ghost town. You can see where production literally stopped and history written on the wall. Now we got a great surprise with an amazing scotch. We got to try some Muckity Muck which is a 26 year old scotch from the Orphan Barrel series. This was pulled from the Port Dundas distillery which closed back in 2010 but they managed to save some of the whiskey that had been aging there. It was so rich with butterscotch and caramel. Amazingly delicious. The other three tastings were okay but nothing truly amazing and they are using the Rick houses on the property to age bullet bourbon. It was a great historical tale and they left us off in the main room showing these golden goblets that customers can get if they manage to get all five different keys off the blade and bow whiskey series. In the gift shop I got a bag of bourbon flavored coffee and two of the five keypads with no bottles of whiskey. Next up let's talk about the Evan Williams bourbon experience. This is right at the beginning of the bourbon trail in downtown Louisville. Now this is called the experience and that's because it's not a working distillery. This is more of a museum than a tour. The experience included multimedia presentations explaining how distilling works. It had lots of history including video reenactments with actors pretending to be Evan Williams talking through his early decisions and lots of replicas of what downtown Louisville looked like back in the day. And this was by far one of the best tasting experiences. It's really all about where that barrel sat in our Rick house and how long it sat in the barrel. So the mash bill is 78% corn 10% rye and 12% malted barley. And give it a taste and see what you think. Cheers! The setting for the tasting was set in an old bar and our tour guide just did an excellent job explaining the mash builds, what we were drinking, what to look for in each of the tastings. I felt like I got a great education out of it. We also got a chance to pair it with some chocolate which really enhances the flavor of a couple of the tastes we had. I ended up buying two bottles of this one and it was good stuff that you couldn't get anywhere else. I got the high rye and then I also got the 12 year old Evan Williams. Now let's move on to my top three favorites. We've talked about four of the seven distilleries I visited but these next three truly stood out. In the number three spot, Woodford Reserve. Nestled in the stunning grounds between Frankford and Versailles, this distillery carries the legacy of the old Oscar Pepper distillery which began production back in 1812. Now Woodford didn't stay open during prohibition but it's been beautifully restored to its former glory. The tour and the setting are nothing short of elegant. I mean it really feels like wealthy Kentucky. Woodford takes pride in its unique distilling practices. They use the traditional cypress vats for fermentation instead of metal. Not only do the cypress vats add historical charm but they also provide superior temperature regulation allowing for a longer, cooler fermentation process. Another standout feature of their process is their giant copper pot stills. Unlike the more common column still, Woodford's pot stills produce a richer, more flavorful spirit. Albeit a slightly lower proof. The tasting experience was equally refined. Educational, classy, and packed with variety. While I didn't buy a bottle this time, since most of their offerings were widely available, I've got my eye on their malt and wheat whiskeys for the future. And let's be real, I'll always grab a bottle of their double oat whenever I spot it on sale. Coming in at number two, Whiskey Thief. Located just outside of Frankfurt down a long gravel road in the middle of a cornfield, this small batch distillery truly lives up to its motto, uncut and unfiltered. What makes it shine is its hands-on one-of-a-kind of experience. Whiskey Thief only opens five barrels at a time and you pour your drink or bottle straight from the barrel using a Whiskey Thief. It's a giant copper straw in case you're wondering. The young man leading our tour had a great line. A lot of distilleries brag about their decades-old proprietary yeast strains. We just leave the barn door open and let the sweet Kentucky farm air do its thing. Of course, I couldn't leave this experience without bottling my own whiskey. This is the kind of place I'd visit again and again. Every trip, it would be a fresh experience. Nature's best lotion. Smell the corn, baby. That last one was great. Ready? Yeah. Nice job. And finally, taking the number one top spot, Rabbit Hole. Just a block away from Angel's in the Bourbon District, Rabbit Hole stands out with its whimsical architecture and its playful vibe. This was by far the most interactive distillery tour of them all. From the start, we were handed an old-fashioned, which I gotta say is just a great way to start the tour. We dove into every step of the process and what was most fascinating to me was we got to taste the mash at different stages. We literally stuck our fingers in the fermenting vats and tasted how it changes over time because each of these vats was about six hours further along in the process than the one before. Our tour guide pumped a little of the white dog fresh out of the still and poured it into our hands so we could feel it and smell it and see what that unaged whiskey was like. Then they've got the coolest pump where all of their white dog goes through as a celebration of the whiskey before it gets put in barrels and shipped out to the The tasting was set up in a great room. They had good variety of product for us and the tour guide did a great job of explaining the differences between the... I wish we'd spent more time up at the bar, the Overlook Bar, and I bought a bottle of the High Gold Cast Strength Single Barrel. This was such an amazing experience. I love being able to learn to a point where I can start to deconstruct something and really say what are the elements of this that I enjoyed or didn't appreciate near as much. And you can probably tell from my rankings that immersive hands-on experience is a big deal for me. I really like being able to participate and be there hands-on. I love the different flavors and being able to understand the difference between a or a more peppery rye. So having good variety in the tasting is also important to me. And then I also just love whimsy and uniqueness and something out of the ordinary. And that's part of why I put Rabbit Hole up at the top. I'd love to hear if you've been to any of these, what you thought of them, any that you think I should try when I go back, because I'm planning on going back, and just what your experience is about what you like and don't like in different bourbons or different distilleries. And that's good. I think the other thing I'm going to do is start looking in my own backyard. There's lots of distilleries in Missouri and I've hit a few of them and I'm going to try to work through the whole passport. Thanks and cheers!