Bourbon Trail Tour recos

Distilleries:
 - Willett is our favorite distillery. I’ve heard their tours can be a bit hit or miss, but we’ve always had a good experience. You can pre-book tours via the website.
- Woodford is beautiful. The grounds are historic, charming, pastoral. The tour’s good as well. I’m just not a huge fan of their juice.
- Turkey was acquired a couple of years ago by Campari who has poured (no pun intended) a gajillion dollars into a new visitors center. Turkey was Kris’ first favorite bourbon, so it’s a sentimental favorite. We’ve seen Jimmy Russel there signing bottles twice, so there’s that.
- Maker’s grounds are beautiful as well. They have a great tour, at least until you get to the tasting room portion where it’s really cramped and kind of high schoolish. They used to give you white dog to taste, which I found helped me understand what I do and don’t like about bourbon. Not sure any more.
- Town Branch is owned by Alltech who also does Kentucky Ale. It’s not a bad tour, and the Ale tie in gives you some different tasting options if you’re bourboned out.
- Heaven Hill is right next door to Willett and makes a good compare/contrast between small and HUGE. However, Heaven Hills and Evan Williams are all the same group so do one or the other. We did the Connoisseur Experience at HH w/Kris’ people…I wouldn’t do that again because you taste many of the same bourbons as the EW speakeasy tour. Also they put us in this weird little closet as opposed to the barrel tasting room in the center of the visitors center.
- Evan Williams Experience is fine. I don’t think they distill onsite, so the tour is mercifully shorter. We did the speakeasy tasting, which is kind of fun in a hokey kind of way. You get to taste some of their better stuff.
- Bulleit is also in town and has a pretty storied history, however I wasn’t super into their tasting. They also are drop-in only. You can’t pre-book. Boo. - Beam has apparently opened a tasting room in downtown Louisville. We’ve been to the Clermont complex and grabbed lunch on site. Beam owns everyone and yet I struggle to find things I actually want to taste there. However, all that being said, it’s probably a good ‘Disney-esque’ intro to bourbon country. BTW, we didn’t see Mila Kunis’ barrel anywhere…Or Mila for that matter.

 Post-tour drinking (aka bars): Haymarket Whiskey Bar is a good bet for a dive-y feel with an amazing bourbon selection. They usually have a Pappy vertical on the menu, so if you haven’t had a chance to try the 15-20-25 (I think…) years, they can help you out. (IMHO Pappy’s overhyped and waaaaay overpriced, but that’s just me. No judgement.) Proof on Main is good for fancy cocktails, but can get a bit snooty. The Sidebar gets a pass from me for being too trendy and cramped.

 For dinner: I love Rye. We end up there pretty much every time we’re in Louisville. Harvest Restaurant is also good. I’ve been wanting to try Feast BBQ, but we always run out of meals while we’re there. A friend has recently confirmed that Feat is excellent! I’m also loving the reviews and menu for Butchertown (link to a PDF), but just haven’t made it there yet.

 Breakfast/coffee: I cannot say enough good things about Wiltshire Pantry, specifically the bakery/café on Barret. Amazing pastries, breakfast sandwiches, and really good coffee.

 Lunch: We struggle with…I’m to the point where we get extra sandwiches/baked goods at Wiltshire to get us through the day. The smokehouse at Jim Beam is pretty average. I can’t really reco Talbott Tavern (It’s on my Saturday Driving list,) but it will do in a pinch. And we never actually made it to Wallace Station (It’s on the Sunday layer.) Oh, and the food at Woodford is really pricey and average. So…If you find something you love for lunch, let me know!