After our tour of Maker's Mark, we headed to the nearby Willett Distillery for another tour and tastings!
The Willett property is also REALLY pretty. This farm sits at one of the highest points in all of Nelson County.
I joked the Willett visitor's center looks like a sorority house ha ha.
We started our tour with Mary, our guide at the place where the original distillation occurred (and still occurs here in the original still house!) This is where the magic happens!
While we had our first tasting, Mary told us all about the Willett family and how Thompson Willett started this distillery in 1936. But the Willett family had moved to Kentucky in the late 1700s and had been distilling since the mid 1800s long before Thompson Willett founded this place.
Cheers to a delicious bourbon!
Here is the mash recipe for Willett!
We got a quick look at the whiskey tanks - the heads and tails tank is one that holds the very first white dog and the very last white dog to come out of the still. The stuff in the middle is the good stuff, and that goes in the whiskey tank. This whole part is a bit unique to Willett (none of the other places we visited did this!)
Speaking of the still, this gorgeous and functional pot still is the very thing Willett models their famous bottles after.
Mary took our pic in front of the iconic copper still! I love that Todd is pointing to the "I am hot" sign!
Love the sign outside!
We made our way over to the barrel filling room. It was a super hot day.
The barrels (new, charred White American Oak of course!) come off the truck and into the facility where they fill them with what will become bourbon.
Naturally, we had to stop here for a little tasting of Kentucky Vintage or Johnny Drum. If you're with someone, you can get one of each and then try both.
Todd getting a little taste of the Kentucky Vintage.
At this point, we are already questioning our decision to hit up a third distillery of the day after this one.
Mary was telling us how they fill the barrels in this room...
... and how they weigh them right on these scales!
After the barrels are filled, they are rolled down this ramp to the rickhouse you see there.
It was warm in the rickhouse, but we had another pour and heard about how bourbon must enter the barrel at no more than 125 proof, and enter the bottle at no less than 80 proof. We also heard about how they use a hand pulley system here at Willett to get the barrels into place in the rickhouse (not an easy task!)
Mary surprised us with one final pour back in the tasting room (which was delightfully air conditioned) and if I remember correctly, it was the Willett Reserve? Man. Too much bourbon. I love that we can see Todd in the mirror there!
The Willett Distillery grounds are really quiet lovely!
I'll go ahead and muck up the photo!
Ok I think Willett was my second favorite distillery (right behind my goat, Maker's Mark of course).
Our last stop of the day was Heaven Hill Distillery!
Someone bring this woman more bourbon! (Or really, you probably shouldn't!)
The Heaven Hill Distillery was unique in that it had a really neat museum with the history of their products that you could walk through before your tour. Side note: They just opened a BRAND new distillery nearby in Bardstown in early September 2025.
The museum is interactive and even has smellivision!
Sadly, there was no bourbon in this barrel that I could siphon with the whiskey thief! Despite it's name, the thief isn't usually used for stealing whiskey from a barrel. It's typically used for master distillers to test the barrel and make sure the aging process is coming along smoothly.
We began our tour with a cute picture of the two of us on the Heaven Hill grounds before we headed over to the Bonded Warehouse.
I'm going to quote some of what I saw in the museum because our fabulous guide Barb told us ALL of this, but the museum displays just said it so much more succinctly than I can rattle off! We took the Bottled-in-Bond tour - and we had been looking for something unique and beyond the normal distillery tour.
Bottled-in-Bond is all about taxes. The museum says, "During the American Civil War, the United States government placed a tax on spirits to help pay for the conflict. Because whiskey, rum and brandy evaporate as they age in wooden barrels, distillers didn't want to pay taxes for spirits they couldn't sell."
"The answer was bonded warehouses, where spirits could be stored for a period of time and then measured by a government gauger, also known as a treasury agent. This government agent would determine the taxable amount of whiskey and stamp the barrel when the tax was paid. The government agent was the only one with the keys to the warehouse." This is where I come in! There's only a small amount of coincidence here since I am literally a government agent ha ha.
There was great suspicion that treasury agent John E. Fitzgerald used a whiskey thief to steal his "nightly share from the finest barrels." Can't blame a guy, I guess! Because of this, Heaven Hill has one bourbon brand called "Larceny" and one called "Old Fitzgerald."
Barb described to us the process of setting up the barrels with the bunghole (man, I wish there was a better name for that - I can't NOT think about Beavis and Butthead when I hear it) facing straight up. They don't all land like this when they're rolled in, but they do try.
Oooo, I see you down there specialty bourbon! The 80th anniversary production barrel!
Todd and I tasted a few very nice bottled-in-bond bourbons in this rickhouse. Here we have the Henry McKenna and the J.T.S. Brown, both featured on the tour.
We really enjoyed the Rittenhouse as well! With rye whiskey, you either love it or hate it. I happen to love them! Rittenhouse is a whiskey because it's mash consists of 51% rye, 35% corn, and 14% malted barley. Remember, it has to be more than 50% corn to be considered a bourbon.
Time is a thief, and the thief is a delicious way to steal bourbon.
They have a small barrel railway line inside of the rickhouse to move the barrels in a somewhat straight direction without a lot of effort.
Our fourth pour was their very own Heaven Hill bottled-in-bond which was my favorite of the tastings.
Every few years, the bonded warehouses STILL get a visit from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, just as they did way back in the late 1800s.
On our way out, Todd declared this was his favorite distillery of the trip.
We laughed hysterically because we literally closed the place down. We were the last ones in the parking lot! Go us!
We had dinner reservations at the Talbot Tavern and it was gooooooooo-ooooood!
I live in the north. Most restaurants in the north do NOT know how to do chicken fried steak and they CERTAINLY do not know how to make a white milk gravy. This place NAILED IT!
I almost cleaned my plate. Todd DID clean his plate! It was outstanding.
Afterwards, we moseyed into the bar next door, which is the real Talbot Tavern- the oldest bourbon bar in America! Superlative, check! When we were in there, we met the owners - John and Kathy, who were SUPER sweet! We had the best time with them - even though Kathy went to Bama, we didn't hold that against her (I kid! She is awesome!)
When the Talbot Tavern closed down, Kathy and John said, "We know this cool speakeasy downtown, let's go have another drink!" And of course... twist our arms, of course we will go. They took us to the The Volstead Bourbon Lounge and it did NOT disappoint! I don't know that I've ever seen so many bourbons! Apparently, they have more than 400 here.
I haven't had an amaretto sour in YEARS and Kathy convinced me to get one that was an amaretto sour with bourbon in it. It was the perfect late night drink (and boy did that remind me a bit of college!)
Cheers to new friends! It's truly the best part of traveling!
Until next time, Bardstown!
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