Old SteelHouse Distillery’s tasting room at 124 N. Third St. is the newest place to drink bourbon on the square: opened in October 2025, it pours the company’s Blueprint bourbons in a room decorated with artifacts from the old T.W. Samuels distillery in Deatsville, which the owners are restoring about ten miles from town. Walk-ins are welcome, it stays open until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and it’s two minutes on foot from Court Square. Come for a guided tasting and a story that ties Bardstown bourbon’s past to Maker’s Mark and Heaven Hill.
Two places with one name
Old SteelHouse has two addresses, and it’s worth knowing which is which before you go.
| Downtown tasting room | Historic distillery | |
|---|---|---|
| Address | 124 N. 3rd St., Bardstown | 1010 Deatsville Rd, Coxs Creek |
| Status | Open since October 2025 | Under restoration |
| Visiting | Walk-ins welcome | Tours by appointment only; no walk-ins |
| What you do | Guided tastings, seasonal releases, private events | See the 45-acre site, its 1930s buildings and rickhouses |
| From Court Square | About 2 minutes on foot | About 10 miles by car |
For most visitors, the downtown tasting room is the visit. The historic site is for people who want to see a distillery in the middle of a comeback and are willing to book ahead.
The tasting room
The room opened with a ribbon cutting on October 28, 2025, led by co-owners Rick Puig and Brian Bible with project partner Kathy Wallace, as reported by the Kentucky Standard. The decor comes from the old distillery itself: laboratory beakers, temperature gauges and other pieces salvaged from the site sit around the bar, so the history is in front of you while you taste.
The tasting room page describes three things on offer: guided tastings through the bourbon lineup with the staff, private events in the tasting space, and first access to limited and seasonal releases. Prices aren’t posted on the site, so ask at the bar or call (502) 490-4400.
Hours, from the company’s site:
- Tuesday: noon to 6 p.m.
- Wednesday and Thursday: noon to 9 p.m.
- Friday and Saturday: noon to 10 p.m.
No Sunday or Monday hours are listed. Tastings are 21+ with photo ID.
What you’ll taste
The current lineup centers on Blueprint. The company lists Blueprint Series Batch 002, a 105-proof, five-year bourbon, and Blueprint Whiskey, a six-year Kentucky straight bourbon at 100 proof that it describes as balanced, with “sweet caramel, cherry, and rye spice.” The name has a good story behind it. When the new owners began work on the old property, they found a preserved chemistry lab, tax stamps, labels and hundreds of blueprints from the distillery’s post-Prohibition rebuild. Those drawings guided the restoration and gave the first release its name when it launched in September 2022.
The history behind the name
The Deatsville property is one of the deepest bourbon stories in Nelson County, and the company’s own timeline lays it out.
- 1844: Taylor William Samuels turns his father’s farm still into the family’s first commercial distillery, T.W. Samuels and Son, in Deatsville.
- 1909: A fire destroys most of the original buildings, including the rickhouses. Grandson Leslie B. Samuels rebuilds.
- 1920: Prohibition closes the distillery, and it is dismantled.
- 1933-1934: Leslie builds a new distillery about a mile from the original site, along the L&N Railroad. Whiskey production returns in April 1934, which the company says made it the third distillery in Nelson County to restart after Prohibition.
- 1942: Bill Samuels Sr., who had run it since his father’s death in 1936, sells the distillery and brands to Foster Trading Corporation, and the plant turns to fuel alcohol for the war.
- 1952 onward: Renamed Country Distillers under Sam Westerman, it keeps making T.W. Samuels until whiskey’s slump in the late 1970s. The property is divided, and two rickhouses go to Heaven Hill.
- 1988: The T.W. Samuels Distillery District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
- 2021: Old SteelHouse Distillery is formed to bring the site back.
Two threads run from here to places you’re likely to visit. Bill Samuels Sr. went on to found Maker’s Mark in Loretto in 1953. And the two rickhouses that went to Heaven Hill became its Deatsville aging site, which Heaven Hill has opened for a limited-time experience called Inside The Rickhouse: The Legacy of Deatsville at the Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience. Our history of bourbon in Nelson County puts the Samuels family in the wider picture.
Visiting the historic site
The 45-acre property sits about ten miles from Bardstown in Coxs Creek, and the company describes buildings from 1933, original rickhouses under restoration and a limestone spring. Its visit page says tours of the property are available by appointment, with no walk-ins, while the work continues. Plans call for structural restoration, a distilling facility build-out and a visitor experience center, with lodging mentioned for the future. Tours carry a firm cancellation policy: free up to 48 hours before, non-refundable after, and no-shows pay in full.
When to go and what to pair it with
Old SteelHouse is at its best in the evening. Spend the day at distilleries outside town, return downtown by late afternoon, and use the tasting room as your last stop, especially on a Friday or Saturday, when it’s open to 10 p.m. It’s a two-minute walk from Circa 1856, so the two make a natural downtown pair: a Chicken Cock flight at 5 p.m., dinner on the square, then a Blueprint pour here. For more places to drink after dark, see Bardstown at night and our roundup of bourbon bars and tasting rooms.
Parking is easiest in the downtown public lots; once you’re parked, everything in this plan is walkable. Don’t drive after the last pour.
Good to know before you go
Plan your visit for Tuesday through Saturday, since the site lists no Sunday or Monday hours. Tuesday closes early, at 6 p.m. Bring a government photo ID for everyone tasting. The tasting room also hosts private gatherings, a good option for a small group or a celebration on a weekend night; contact the company through its website to arrange one. If you’d like to see the Deatsville property, book well ahead, arrange a sober driver for the rural roads, and remember the 48-hour cancellation rule.
Is it worth it?
Yes, particularly as a downtown evening stop and for anyone who enjoys the backstory as much as the whiskey. The tasting room is small and new, and the bourbon lineup is short, so don’t expect the range of a big visitor center. What you get is a friendly, walk-in pour on the square with a story that connects three of the county’s best-known bourbon names. Check back on the Deatsville restoration, too: it may become one of the most interesting distillery visits in Nelson County once the doors fully open. Compare everything in town in our distillery tours guide.
