Planning a guys trip to Bourbon Country for our annual fantasy football draft. 7-10 guys age 30s-40s for 3 nights. Probably play golf 1 day and do some bourbon tours/tasting. Looking for any suggestions or must-dos for places to stay/eat/visit. Thanks!

Everything I've read is that you basically can't miss doing a tour at Buffalo Trace.

Beyond that, I'm no help.....until we play Louisville later this decade

We did bourbon trail a few years ago. Such a fun trip! We stayed in Lexington and traveled from there. Definitely do the tour at Buffalo Trace. My husband's favorite place to hang out is Castle and Key. Beautiful grounds and great batch made cocktails.

Also, eat at OBC in Lexington. Get the bacon in a glass. You're welcome.

DeepintheHeart06 said:

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Planning a guys trip to Bourbon Country for our annual fantasy football draft. 7-10 guys age 30s-40s for 3 nights. Probably play golf 1 day and do some bourbon tours/tasting. Looking for any suggestions or must-dos for places to stay/eat/visit. Thanks!

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Find a way to play Valhalla in Louisville. The PGA will be played there next year. You will regret not doing it. Jeff Ruby's is a good steakhouse in Louisville. Woodford is my favorite tour, if for no other reason than the route through horse country. Beautiful. Take in a horse race at Keenland in Lexington.

Get your reservations in EARLY for BT. a must going there

I believe BT opens their tour/tastings the month prior.

Research whenever it is and book your tour/tasting the second it opens or you won't get a spot, especially with that large of a group.

Plus is they are free and get to cut the line for the gift shop in hopes of getting a nice bottle. .

We prefer makers, woodford reserve, castle and key, Heaven hill, and willet as distillery grounds are spectacular.

Evans Williams had an awesome speakeasy cocktail tour we went on but rest of the lousisville facility is meh.

We did a tasting at angels envy and old forester and wasn't impressed with either especially since they were pricey.

I've stayed in Lexington and Louisville but would use Bardstown as home base if we go again.

Bardstown just had nice small town vibe with lot of distilleries close by.

We did the bourbon trail in March. We stayed in Louisville and travelled around to several distilleries.

If I went again, I would stay in Bardstown.

My favorite distilleries were Willett, Rabbit Hole (this one surprised me), Bardstown, and Buffalo Trace.

Another vote for Bardstown. We stayed at The Old Talbot Tavern & Inn. Built in 1779.

I would squeeze in a day and go to French Lick. (home of Larry Bird) Couple of cool, old hotels built in 1903 and now there is a casino next door.

edti: French Lick

Just got back from Louisville about a month ago. We rented an amazing house just outside downtown. Had a whole trip planned but had to call an audible last minute to get back for a funeral. Ended up flying in on Wednesday night (day earlier than planned).

I'll break down what we did in a long post:

We were able to get a booking for Willet on Thursday. Took an Uber out there. Ended up eating at their restaurant onsite for lunch. Michelan star chef onsite. It's fancy but nice shareable portions. I enjoyed Willet and it's a cool place and the woman that did the tasting was a great host and very interesting. One of the couples we went with ended up having a booking at heaven hill that afternoon (keep in mind most of us were normally due to fly in on Thursday afternoon so were winging it).

I ended up grabbing 4 of us the Old Forester tour on whiskey row downtown that afternoon. Really enjoyed the tour. We did the $25 regular tour (the $75 tour where you get to taste birthday was booked). You can hit their bar and try it afterwards if you want. After that we walked to Evan Williams. No tour scheduled and were planning on going to their bar. Ended up but their gift shop with them offering us free tastings. We got to buy a few bottles of Elija Craig toasted. After that we walked to Michters and went up to their bar for cocktails. Great bar to enjoy cocktails. Ended up going back to the house and cooking dinner.

Next day we had Mint Julep tours booked. Hit Buffalo trace to start the day. It's a great place to see but I honestly thought it was overhyped. The gift shop that day was Weller green label. I didn't buy any cause I can get that anywhere. If we had gone on Saturday it was blantons. You don't get to try anything special. Next stop was Whiskey Thief. Cool place where you get to drink from the Barrell. Very small and interesting. No real tour there. Then we hit up Castle and Key. No tour planned but we enjoyed the grounds and their bar. I'd highly recommend it. Very scenic and awesome old castle and very historic. Last stop of the day was Woodford. Great tour and tasting. Plus the bar across the street makes awesome old fashioneds.

Will say if you bring the wives and they aren't huge bourbon drinkers then be prepared to finish their tastings. I'd say hit up 1 or 2 tours and then do distillery bars and relax. You don't need to hear the same story etc over and over again.

If you have questions let me know. Just saying if i went back I'd skip doing tours everywhere. Save the money and go to their bars and have a nice pour of something you can't get normally. You can have an awesome day just doing whiskey row in downtown Louisville. Enjoy your trip.

In my opinion Old Forester is the best tour since they do everything on site, making the barrels etc. Most of these distillers actually buy their barrels from Old Forrester.

Would have to agree. It's a legit tour and I've always been an OF fan in general.

Stayed in downtown Louisville Do that and drive to the sites

Here with a group ending our stay today. We did Makers, Woodford, buffalo trace, and whiskey thief.

Buffalo trace has the largest, most impressive facility but the tour was lacking. EH Taylor was only $45/bottle though so that was a plus. Makers Mark in my opinion has the best/most thorough tour out of the ones we did. Whiskey thief was one of the better experiences if you actually enjoy tasting different bourbons, and it's also not something you can buy anywhere else.

When I get a chance to make it my top 3 would be Heaven Hill, Mitchers and Old Forester

Makers tour is cant-miss good.

Just returned from there this weekend. Toured Four Roses, Woodford and Bulliet. Of the three, Four Roses was the favorite of the bourbon drinkers in our crowd.

You might consider adding a Louisville Bats minor league baseball game to your itinerary. Fun ballpark down along the Ohio River. https://www.milb.com/louisville/schedule/2023-08

We also caught a couple races out at Churchill Downs before we had to catch a plane. I don't know their late summer season.

We are headed to Louisville prior to to Aggie/tenn game. Is it best to hire a tour company to arrange anything or better for a private Uber driver that can take us around?

Another vote for makers. It was our favorite tour.

I'm headed up there in October. Buffalo trace is a no brainer - doing that the morning of Oct 20. Trying to do one on the way back to Louisville - maybe 4 Roses? Then was thinking Old Forester and Makers the next day. Maybe Woodford too

Wives are going but they know it's a bourbon trip!

Castle and key looks like a fun one even though I don't like their stuff

This is great, my wife and I are going late September so we're working on our visit list while we're there. Most of the tours are 3months or 90days out so we're getting closer to booking them.

Another vote for Makers as the best tour. Just got back from a weekend in Lexington. We did a tasting at Woodford, and tours at Four Roses and Makers. The drive to Woodford was incredible, and it's on the same country road as Castle and Key. We drove by C&K and the grounds were really nice….wish we had more time to explore there. Watch the daily odds site for Buffalo Trace to have an idea about what may hit the gift shop that day. We were lucky to have Blantons on the day we were there. We got in line right as it opened and waited a little over an hour to get in. There were plenty of bottles even though I was nervous with hundreds of people in front of us. I tried booking a tour at BT, but the time slots I wanted were gone within five minutes of the site opening up. Crazy demand!

BT really good. Makers beautiful campus great tour but Willet was a very good and different kind of tour