Bourbon Trail Tales (Part 1!) - Bardstown (Heaven Hill, Bardstown Bourbon Company & Willett)
Background
Quick background- our whiskey group here in DC (J St Whiskey) was fortunate enough to partner with some local establishments (shoutout to District Liquors, Show of Hands and Cinder BBQ) to head out to Kentucky and pick a Peerless Bourbon barrel recently. As a few of our picking crew had not been out to the promised land yet, we decided to build in a fair amount of tours and stops. I wanted to share some of my takeaways from our experiences throughout our trip, with the hope being that others heading out to KY find some of this useful, and am planning to do it in three parts:
Part 1: Bardstown
In each of these posts I’ll break things down by distillery, tour, and also note some interesting stops we made along the way! Starting off with our first tour getting into Bardstown…
Heaven Hill: You Do Bourbon
Price/Length: $40 + taxes, fees, and optionally the cost of the bottle you fill should you choose to do so. The tour runs 1 hour and 15 mins.
Details: It’s actually a pretty simple setup for an experience. First your group gets told a little bit of history about Heaven Hill, then you are brought into a room where you get to taste 3-4 samples: Larceny Barrel Proof, Bernheim Barrel Proof Wheat Whiskey, and Elijah Craig Barrel Proof. On occasion, they will have a barrel of Select Stock- which is something not available on the market you can optionally taste and then fill as well. Now, the samples you are tasting are not from off the shelf batches, they are from barrels specifically selected for guests on this tour to fill their own bottle.
You’ll walk through the tasting of each of the three samples, and from there you have the option of filling your own bottle that you then buy. Prices were $79 for the Larceny/Elijah Craig, and $84 for the Bernheim. Once you’ve picked your bottle, you bring the empty into a bottling room where you rinse it, fill it, and label it! From there you can either head right to the check out or see what is happening up at the Heaven Hill bar.
Overall Thoughts: I mean yeah, filling your own bottle is fun. I appreciate that Heaven Hill essentially gets right to the tasting, picking your bottle and filling it. There really is not a ton of fluff here. Of course I wish Select Stock was available, but you just never get lucky at every distillery stop it just doesn’t happen. Now, my main complaint with our Heaven Hill experience is not this particular tour- it’s the bar. The bar prices were WELL above even DC bar prices. And look I get it, you’re a major tourist destination, you probably have to price stuff so you dont entirely run out. That said, I think Heaven Hill 17 was $125/oz- or about $50 more than Show of Hands in DC charges. I didnt expect some crazy deal but that degree of markup over even expensive city prices is something else.
Notable Gift Shop Offerings: None, at least by the time we got there.
Bardstown Bourbon Company: Rickhouse Barrel Thieving
Price/Length: $30 + taxes and fees. 1 hour. Disclaimer: Bardstown was nice enough to comp our tour.
Details: If you haven’t been to Bardstown Bourbon Company, it’s a trip. You’ll hear terms like “Napa Valley style” thrown around to describe the place, as it’s definitely built to cater to tourism and visitors. The Rickhouse Barrel Thieving tour is also a fairly simple concept, you’ll walk with your tour guide into a huge, modern, glass sided rickhouse where 3 barrels are set aside. I’m not sure to which degree those barrels vary, but for us we sampled from their wheated mashbill bourbon, high rye mashbill bourbon, and rye whiskey. The Bardstown team thieves these directly from the barrels into your glass, and we also concluded with a pour of the latest Fusion series.
Overall Thoughts: I wrote about the Bardstown Origin Series here, but let me tell you tasting from barrels that I assume will become Origin Series (or at least the same distillate) at barrel proof is a treat. I also would be remiss if I didn’t note that our tour guide- and forgive me, I forgot her name- was excellent. She was extremely passionate and patient as we asked a million questions. Standard distillery tours can be a little same-y after a while. Here's the fermentation tanks, here's the still, here's the barrels, into a tasting room. This, especially being barely more than many distillery’s standard tours, is an excellent way to break that monotony.
Notable Gift Shop Offerings: Discovery Series #10, Collaboration Series: Chateau Doisy Daene.
Willett: Distillery and Production Tour with Tasting + Dinner at the Bar at Willett.
Price/Length: $25 + taxes and fees. 1 hour and 15 mins. Disclaimer: Willett was nice enough to comp our tour.
Details: Counter to a good few other tours I’ve done where the tour concludes with a tasting, Willett walks you around and provides pours throughout. At I believe four (honestly it might have been five, it was a long day) separate stops on the tour, you’re offered a choice of pours from their standard offerings (so no single barrel Family Estate Bourbon, Willett 8 Year Bourbon, or rye other than the 4 year). They’ll lead you through the whole production of the whiskey, from the mash cooking all the way through to a rickhouse.
Following the tour, we headed upstairs for an early dinner at the Bar at Willett. I’m hardly the first one to say this, but the food is absolutely exceptional. The menu also rotates frequently, encouraging repeat visits. Even looking at the menu online now it’s clear they changed it from when we were there. A few items, like the famous egg salad for example, are fixtures on the menu. Of course, you’re probably there for what’s behind the bar: which is row on row of single barrel Willett selections. You can order them individually or Willett puts together flights you can taste through.
Overall Thoughts: I love that this is a “drinking and walking” tour, and I think more distilleries should emulate that approach. Who doesn't like taking in the facilities, drink in hand! Now those hoping either the tour or the gift shop will yield pours of the highly sought after Family Estate single barrels be warned, they do not. Even knowing that this is still an appointment stop for me each time I’m in Bardstown. The grounds are beautiful, the food rules (highlights this time: crawfish hushpuppies topped with rickhouse aged ham, spicy chicken thighs), the tour is engaging and boozy. It’s 100% worth a stop.
Notable Gift Shop Offerings: None, at least by the time we got there.
Notable Stops
On our drive in from Louisville we made a few pit stops:
Jim Beam: Jim Beam Lineage for $250+tax
Four Roses Cox Creek Bottling: Nothing available that day.
Lux Row: Lux Row 12 for $189+tax
