The Bardstown Bourbon Co. of Kentucky announces the opening of its new Visitors Center Experience, featuring attractions designed to complement locals, tourists, bourbon enthusiasts and novices alike. The expansive development includes curated tours, cocktail classes, exclusive tastings and multiple private event spaces. The new facility’s aesthetic is a continuation of Bardstown Bourbon Co.’s modern bourbon experience with glass paneling, moss art walls and inviting open design.
“The team here has created an entirely unique guest experience,” says Bardstown Bourbon Company CEO, Mark Erwin. “Our Visitors Experience reflects our core values of collaboration, innovation and transparency. We have crafted incredible tours that engage our visitors and celebrate the art and science of whiskey creation.”
The tours available at Bardstown Bourbon Co.’s new Visitors Center will serve to connect and educate guests in the distillery’s complete process of making whiskey with full transparency. Guests can choose from multiple levels of experiences, including “The Main Event”, a one hour fully immersive tour, and “Bardstown Bourbon Company’s Best,” a top-tier 90-minute tour featuring sensory exercises, cocktails and a personal tour given by master distiller Steve Nally.
The sensory exercises will allow visitors the opportunity to examine distillate, taste how bourbon ages, and learn how it is used in finished products. The tours will showcase the distillery’s experimental distilling process of 40 mash bills for over 24 customers. Guests will also be able to enjoy the Visitors Center adjacent rickhouse tasting bar, which is surrounded by stacks and rows of Kentucky bourbon barrels, where they will thieve whiskey straight from the barrel.
Patrons can also purchase an abbreviated tour individually, as well as engaging and fun cocktail classes led by spirit specialists, or exclusive tastings given by Certified Bourbon Stewards.
“The opening of our Visitors Experience is the seminal moment in the history of Bardstown Bourbon Company. It is our opportunity to share our modern approach and to connect with our guests,” says Dan Callaway, director of bourbon education, visitors experience, and product development. “We are so very proud of our hard work and of what we have created, but at the end of the day, we want to just have fun with whiskey.”
Visitors will be able to book online through bardstownbourbon.com and in person at the distillery’s in-house restaurant, Bottle & Bond Kitchen and Bar, the only full-service restaurant on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.