Bardstown Bourbon Company Opens Doors to New Visitor Center

Bardstown Bourbon Company, the Kentucky distillery known for its collaborations with brands like Jefferson’s, High West, and Hirsch, has announced the opening of its Visitors Center Experience in Bardstown, an attraction “designed to complement locals, tourists, bourbon enthusiasts and novices alike,” and featuring tours, cocktail classes, tastings, and private event spaces, according to a prepared statement from the distillery.

“The team here has created an entirely unique guest experience,” said Bardstown Bourbon CEO Mark Erwin in the statement. “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 center will serve to “connect and educate guests” in the process of whiskey-making, with the focus on transparency that’s become a byword for the startup distillery. Guests will be able to choose from various tours, including hour-long Main Event and a 90-minute experience called Bardstown Bourbon Company’s Best, which will feature “sensory exercises, cocktails, and a personal tour given by master distiller Steve Nally.”

Those “sensory exercises” include a look at new-make distillate and tastings of bourbon as it ages. The tours will also “showcase [Bardstown’s] experimental distilling process of 40 mash bills for over 24 customers.” After the tours, of course, visitors will be able to head to the so-called rickhouse tasting bar, where they’ll be surrounded by stacks of bourbon barrels available for tasting.

This kind of visitor center is something that’s increasingly popular in the whisk(e)y world, with names as different as Johnnie Walker and Uncle Nearest announcing their own takes on the concept in recent years.