Bardstown Bourbon Co.’s new tasting experience is now open in the heart of downtown Louisville, Kentucky’s storied Whiskey Row. As the modern bourbon experience, the Louisville Tasting Room will feature highly interactive education, innovative craft cocktails, augmented reality and immersive digital environments, curated retail merchandise and exclusive bottles.
Bardstown Bourbon Co. is pushing the boundaries of innovation while honoring the traditional art of whiskey-making. The new experience is located at 730 W. Main Street, which anchors the west end of Main Street just past 21c Museum Hotel and a block from the Frazier Museum, enables consumers to experience the brand in a variety of ways. In true Bardstown Bourbon Co. fashion, the Louisville Tasting Room features a full-service bar with innovative craft cocktails and unique tasting experiences. The fresh, modern environment matches their expertise in blending, finishing and whiskey-making with immersive digital environments.
“As a company focused on exploring and showcasing what’s possible in whiskey, we’ve spent years creating a new tradition that celebrates the past while looking into the future. For this space, integrating leading-edge technology and building tasting experiences unlike anything else in the state was key to doing that. Bardstown Bourbon Co. has the opportunity to speak to a much larger audience in Downtown Louisville and merged the best of design, experience, and story-telling in order to do so,” said Dan Callaway, vice president of new product development at Bardstown Bourbon Co.
Bardstown Bourbon Co. worked with international agency 3rockAR to create a 3D engagement as you enter the spaces, showcasing the family of brands. Hidden augmented reality elements throughout the space — created by local experiential agency HumanX — will tie back to the state-of-the-art distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky.
“More than 2 million visitors came to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail last year and more people are enjoying bourbon experiences all across the state. While many make the pilgrimage to Bardstown, Louisville is really Kentucky’s open arms. House Bill 500, which granted the ability to open a tasting room, made way for us to educate people about how we’re moving bourbon forward in a distinctly Bardstown Bourbon Co. way, right here in Louisville,” said Mark Erwin, CEO of Bardstown Bourbon Co.
Features
The Tasting Room will offer three distinct educational experiences ranging from $25-35 per person and last up to 40 minutes.
The Collaborative Series Experience showcases some of the most innovative and complex whiskies on the market, discovering the influence of barrel finishing in partnership with leading producers in a variety of spirits categories. The Origin Experience showcases the brand’s 100 percent estate-distilled flagship products. The Art of Blending Experience explores the sensory characteristics of the unique bourbons of the Discovery Series, studying the aroma, flavor, and finish.
Reservations are encouraged and can be booked online at bardstownbourbon.com/plan-a-visit.
The space also features a retail shop that will sell the full portfolio of Bardstown Bourbon Co. products, merchandise, and distillery-only releases at select times. Selections include the latest sought-after collaborations with Goose Island and Foursquare Rum, Discovery 10 and 11, and new releases that will only be available at the Louisville Tasting Room.
The bar menu has been carefully curated to open with a mixture of bespoke cocktails and innovative twists on classics. It will evolve seasonally to feature local ingredients and new riffs.
The Bardstown Bourbon Co. Louisville Tasting Room took nearly a year to construct and was brought to life by a collaborative team of Kentucky vendors, including architecture and interior design by Joseph & Joseph (Louisville, Ky.), Buzick Construction (Bardstown, Ky.), fabrication by Rustic Nail & Co. (Bowling Green, Ky.) and interior design consultants Willie Martin’s (Lebanon, Ky.)
The Bardstown Bourbon Company Louisville Tasting Room will be open Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Private event bookings will be available later in the year. For more information or to book experiences, visit bardstownbourbon.com.