Few towns in Kentucky put as many distillery visits within a short drive as Bardstown: Visit Bardstown counts 11 distillery experiences within 16 miles of Court Square, and widening the circle to about 45 minutes brings in several more. Tickets run from a $15 walk-in tour at Boundary Oak to a $250 vintage library tasting at Bardstown Bourbon Company, and most tours last about an hour. The table below compares every one, then the sections that follow explain how to choose, how to book and what changed in 2026.
Every distillery tour near Bardstown, side by side
Drive times are from Court Square under normal conditions; add a few minutes for rural roads and fall traffic. Where a distillery publishes prices only inside its booking system, the table says so rather than guessing.
| Distillery | Main tours and tastings | Price | Length | Booking | Drive from Court Square |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Circa 1856 (Chicken Cock) | Guided flight; bar | On Resy | Short seated flight | Resy strongly encouraged; bar walk-ins | 1-minute walk |
| Old SteelHouse tasting room | Guided tastings | Ask at the bar | Short | Walk-ins welcome; historic site by appointment | 2-minute walk |
| Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience | Bottled-in-Bond Tour and Tasting; Elijah Craig Tasting; rotating tastings | On booking page | Tastings under 1 hr; BiB tour about 90 min | Online; galleries and restaurant walk-in | About 5 min (2 mi) |
| Heaven Hill Springs Distillery | Heaven Hill Springs Distillery Tour | $55 | About 1 hr plus shuttle | Online; shuttle from Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience only | Starts at Heaven Hill, about 5 min |
| Preservation Distillery + Farm | Welcome to Preservation Farm; premium tasting; VIP private experience | From $24 | About 1-1.5 hr | Online | About 6 min (2.5 mi) |
| Willett Distillery | Walking tour with progressive tasting; a dozen+ other experiences | On booking page | About 1 hr 15 min | Online; often sells out weeks ahead | About 8 min (3 mi) |
| Lux Row Distillers | Production Tour; Distiller’s Collection Select; A Taste of Lux Row | On booking page | About 1-1.5 hr | Online; walk-ins often accommodated | About 8 min (3.5 mi) |
| Bardstown Bourbon Company | Core Four; Barrel Thieving; Beyond the Barrel; Behind the Scenes; Tour with the Master; cocktail classes; library tasting | $24-$250 | 30 min-3.5 hr | Online, strongly recommended; no tours Mon-Tue | About 10 min (4 mi) |
| Four Roses Warehouse & Bottling | Free visitor center, shop and bar; ticketed bottling experiences | Free entry; tours on booking page | Varies | Online for guided experiences | About 20 min (12 mi) |
| Log Still Distillery | Distillery tour and guided tasting | On booking page | About 1 hr | Online, highly recommended | About 25 min (13 mi) |
| Jim Beam, Clermont | Beam Made Bourbon tour and tasting | On booking page | About 90 min | Online | About 25 min (15.5 mi) |
| Maker’s Mark, Loretto | The Maker’s Mark Tour; longer premium experiences | Varies by season | About 1 hr 15 min | Online; book ahead in fall | About 35 min (21 mi) |
| Limestone Branch, Lebanon | Distillery tour and guided tastings | On booking page | Varies | Reservations appreciated; walk-ins welcome | About 35-40 min (28 mi) |
| Boundary Oak, Radcliff | Walk-in guided tour; Platinum or Flagship flights | $10 tasting; $15 tour + tasting | Short | Walk in; call for groups of 15+ | About 50-60 min (35-40 mi) |
| Barton 1792 | None: closed to the public since June 30, 2022 | n/a | n/a | n/a | About 5 min |
Tastings everywhere are 21+ with a valid government photo ID.
Days and hours that trip people up
- No tours on Mondays or Tuesdays at Bardstown Bourbon Company. The visitor center still opens.
- Willett is closed on Sundays, and The Bar at Willett serves Wednesday through Saturday only.
- Four Roses in Cox’s Creek is closed Monday and Tuesday, though its visitor center, shop and bar are free to walk into the rest of the week. Limestone Branch is closed Sunday and Monday.
- Heaven Hill’s last tasting starts an hour before closing, and on Sundays it opens only at 1 p.m.
- Preservation opens at 9:30 a.m. every day, the earliest Sunday start around town.
- Circa 1856 stays open until 9 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, and Old SteelHouse until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, so downtown is your evening plan.
The 2026 changes you need to know
Three things changed recently, and older guides haven’t caught up.
- Stills are paused at three stops. Jim Beam stopped distilling at its main Clermont plant for a year from January 1, 2026, and MGP stopped distilling at Lux Row and Limestone Branch from May 1, 2026. All three still run tours, tastings and shops. You just won’t see live production.
- New places opened. Heaven Hill Springs began public tours in September 2025, and Old SteelHouse opened its downtown tasting room in October 2025.
- Barton 1792 is closed to visitors, and the paper Kentucky Bourbon Trail passport was retired after July 1, 2025. Trip planning now happens in the trail’s free online trip builder; see the Kentucky Bourbon Trail from Bardstown.
How to choose
If you only have time for a few, pick by what you want to feel.
For small, historic and personal: Willett and Preservation. Both are family-driven (book Willett early on its visit page), and Preservation’s pot stills and longhorns make it the most rural visit in town.
For big-name scale: Heaven Hill Springs for modern production, and Maker’s Mark for a National Historic Landmark and hand-dipping your own bottle in red wax.
For value: Bardstown Bourbon Company’s $24 Core Four (every option is listed on its experience page) and Preservation’s $24 farm tour, and Boundary Oak if you’re heading west. The Oscar Getz Museum downtown is free.
For no driving: Circa 1856 and Old SteelHouse, both a short walk from Court Square.
For a whole-day destination: Log Still, with lodging, a lake and concerts at its amphitheater.
Booking and pacing
Plan about an hour and a half per stop for the tour, tasting and gift shop, and keep it to two or three distilleries a day. Book the hardest tickets first (Willett, then Maker’s Mark and the Heaven Hill Springs tour), then fill in around them. Under state law, each guest may take only one tour experience per distillery per day. Fall weekends and the September Kentucky Bourbon Festival fill both tours and hotels, so our booking guide explains how far ahead to reserve in each season.
Getting between distilleries safely
Most stops are outside downtown and need a car, and every tour ends with a tasting. Choose a designated driver (Heaven Hill runs a designated-driver program), or hire a driver for the day. Bardstown-based Kentucky Bourbon Boys is one of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail’s listed transportation partners, and our page on bourbon tours and transportation covers the others.
Sample days that work
South-side loop: Preservation at 9:30 a.m., Willett late morning with lunch at The Bar at Willett, then Heaven Hill in the afternoon. The three are within about ten minutes of each other.
East-side afternoon: Bardstown Bourbon Company’s Core Four and lunch, then Lux Row’s barrel wall.
Loretto run: Willett in the morning, then Maker’s Mark after lunch, down the same road.
For hour-by-hour plans, see our two-day bourbon itinerary. If you’re counting dollars, start with the free Oscar Getz Museum of Bourbon History downtown and the $24 tours above.
