Bourbon tourism: Wealthy heritage, booming renaissance

By Greg Paeth

The Urban Bourbon Trail gives tourists the Kentucky Bourbon Trail a chance to spend a little more time in Louisville.

In 1783, Evan Williams began distilling bourbon in downtown Louisville at what is known as Kentucky’s first commercial distillery. Since those early days, Kentucky bourbon has grown into a $ 8.6 billion branded industry, creating 20,100 jobs with $ 1 billion annual wages. The Kentucky Distillers Association estimates there are at least two kegs of aging bourbon for each of the state’s 4.5 million residents.

Louisville plays a huge role in both the industry and the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, the 18-stop distillery tour that has made Bourbon unprecedented in popularity since its inception in 1999. The Kentucky Bourbon Trail Welcome Center is located on the first floor of the Frazier History Museum in downtown Louisville.

Seven of the 18 trail venues are in Louisville – now referred to as “Bourbon City” itself – and eight more are about an hour’s drive away, with most in Bardstown, another popular Bourbon tourism destination. Six of the 19 stops on the Kentucky Bourbon Craft Trail, the “artisan distillery” tangent to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail from 2012, are either in Louisville or within an hour’s drive.

Because Louisville is often the first stop on the road for many Bourbon tourists, the city has created complementary attractions such as the Urban Bourbon Trail, a self-guided cultural, cocktail, and dining experience that gives tourists the opportunity to spend more time in “Bourbon City . “The route has more than 30 stops and features urban distilleries, bourbon bars, restaurants and attractions.

Although the pandemic slowed tourism activity, Kentucky bourbon tourism leaders remain confident that tourism numbers will rebound in 2021. Those hopes grew even higher when the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in June.

“We weren’t quite sure what to expect in 2021. But it was very promising from the start, ”said Elizabeth Dowell, Stitzel-Weller Brand Home Manager for Stitzel-Weller, a distillery in the Shively suburb of Louisville.

“We are also seeing an increase in requests for private group travel. From 2021, people look forward to being on the go, spending money and having fun. In a world of fear and uncertainty, visitors find our destinations safe and relaxing, ”she said.

Stitzel-Weller, a station on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, advertises three brands under the umbrella of Diageo, the major British spirits manufacturer. Bulleit, Blade and Bow and IW Harper are the stars at the Shively location.

In 2019, more than 50,000 visitors took a close look at Stitzel-Weller and the Bulleit Distillery in Shelbyville, Dowell said.

Jeff Crowe, General Manager of Visitor Experiences for Heaven Hill Brands in Kentucky, agreed that 2019 was an exceptional year for the distillery’s Evan Williams Bourbon Experience in downtown Louisville and the Heaven Hill Bourbon Heritage Center in Bardstown.

Headquartered in Louisville, Heaven Hill set records in 2019 with 110,000 visitors in Louisville and 70,000 in Bardstown, Crowe said, adding that the numbers had dropped to around 40,000 in Louisville and 50,000 in Bardstown in 2020.

But this year looks a lot better for Heaven Hill. Like most of the other distilleries in the state, the company produces a long list of brands including Evan Williams, Bernheim, Elijah Craig, Henry McKenna, Larceny, Old Fitzgerald, Parker’s Heritage, and Rittenhouse Rye.

“We’re seeing a lot more pedestrians (in Louisville),” said Crowe. “I think we will see a faster recovery than we expected.”

The annual Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a return to the personal program. [Kentucky Bourbon Festival photo]Bardstown tours also sold out in advance as Heaven Hill prepared to unveil the $ 18.5 million renovation of its Bourbon Heritage Center in mid-June.

In nearby New Haven is the Log Still Distillery, where Governor Andy Beshear and other state and local officials severed the ribbon in the distillery’s tasting room in May, an element of a $ 36 million investment in the Dant family’s “bourbonism” . The project, called Dant Crossing, is a 300 acre facility that includes the distillery, bed and breakfast, cottages, amphitheater, restaurant, museum, conference center, train depot and visitor center.

Stacey Yates, vice president of marketing communications at Louisville Tourism, said that, from her point of view, there is a lot of evidence that people want to leave their homes and go on a day trip or tour, for example.

“The bourbon distilleries are coming back and some are sold out (a month in advance),” said Yates.

A strong sign of optimism in 2021 is the return of two major “Bourbonism” events in the fall.

The 30th edition of the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown will take place in person in September 2021, after being postponed for a month and held virtually last year. The ninth Bourbon Classic in Louisville, originally scheduled for February, has been moved to November in a new location: Louisville Slugger Field.

Adam Johnson, senior director of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail Experience, said record turnouts and spending in 2019 set the stage for a boom bourbon year in 2020, until the pandemic sabotages travel.

In 2019, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail distilleries received 1.2 million visits, a number that has dropped to 350,000 over the past year, Johnson said. Participation also fell by around 51% along the Handwerksweges.

Although Louisville and Bardstown may be rivals for the “Best Bourbon Experience” title, a Bardstown tourism officer agreed with her Louisville counterpart on the prospect of an industry resurgence this year.

Ten distilleries within a radius of 15 miles “… really means to us as the bourbon capital of the world. Where else can you get 10 distillery experiences and they are all unique, all different (and) … most of them are within six or eight kilometers, “said Samantha Brady, executive director of Bardstown-Nelson County’s Tourism Commission.

She described 2019 as “a great year for tourism … and 2020 should be an outstanding year for us. Every year we’ve raised the bar and tourism in Bardstown has grown exponentially. The bourbon boom was enormous for Bardstown. We have always been bourbon. “

Regional bourbon investments continue

Despite last year’s pandemic-induced downturn, investors in and around Louisville are betting millions on Bourbonism.

The Kentucky Bourbon Trail Welcome Center is located in the Frazier Kentucky History Museum in Louisville.

Louisville-based Brown-Forman, whose brands include Old Forester and Woodford Reserve, two stops on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, announced earlier this year that it will be investing $ 95 million to double the capacity of its Shively distillery.

Headquartered in the UK, Diageo produces its fast-growing Bulleit brand in a $ 115 million distillery that opened in Shelbyville four years ago. The parent company is also planning to build a $ 130 million distillery in Lebanon for Bulleit. A company spokesman said this facility should be completed this year.

Plans for another distillery were announced last August when real estate developer Lee Wilburn said he founded Clermont Distilling Co., which will make bourbon in the same small community where Jim Beam, one of the world’s best-selling brands, is too Home is.

In terms of geography, Clermont is a savvy location to do business as it is east of busy I-65 and Bourbon Disneyland in Bardstown.

A Georgia developer and builder has also announced a plan to revitalize the long-dormant TW Samuels Distillery, located about 10 minutes from the heart of Bardstown. Ambitious plans call for tours of the historic site, accommodations, a restaurant, bar, tasting room, and event space.

At this point, construction work had not yet started on the site, which has not distilled whiskey since 1952.

In the spring of 2021, Bardstown Bourbon Co. celebrated the opening of its new 55,000-square-foot bottling facility, a project that created 25 new jobs.