KBT: Evan Williams Bourbon Experience - Louisville, KY
Louisville, Kentucky: it’s the largest city in the state. It’s the home of the Louisville Slugger, Mohammed Ali, the Kentucky Derby, and that other team down the road from Lexington who’s name will go unmentioned. Jefferson county has the most distilleries on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail than any other county in the state: Angel’s Envy, Evan Williams Bourbon Experience, Jim Beam Urban Stillhouse, and Bulliett Frontier Whiskey Experience at Stitzel-Weller.
Our first stop on the KBT was the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience. This was the first distillery to open its doors on the newly revamped Whiskey Row portion of Main Street in downtown Louisville back in 2013. When you walk through the entrance of the EWBE you’ll notice a really neat water feature; it’s actually a very large bottle of Evan Williams black label pouring “bourbon” from the second floor of the lobby into an equally large rocks glass on the first floor of the lobby. After gawking at the water feature and taking several pictures we made our way over to the welcome desk, where we paid for our tour and picked up our official KBT passport! They even had the Evan Williams page pre-stamped to help us get a jump start on our journey! (Side note: you don’t have to start at Evan Williams to get your passport - they are available at all of the distilleries on the KBT). We were quickly greeted by our fun and knowledgeable tour guide, who took us through a bunch of really interesting rooms and explained the history of the distillery. He even showed us the process for making Evan Williams bourbon, from adding the ingredients to pouring the distilled product into the barrels. We even got to go into one of the fancy tasting rooms and try four of Evan Williams’ best-selling bourbons: Evan Williams black label, Evan Williams Single Barrel, Evan Williams Master Blend, and Evan Williams 12 year red label. My favorite of these was the 12 year red label; it’s aged 12 years at 101 proof so it’s very smooth going down the hatch! This bourbon is only available at the Evan Williams gift shop for the low, low price of $130! While it goes without saying that I didn’t come prepared to take home a bottle of the red label, I did get out of here with some bourbon balls and nice t-shirt!
Coming up to Louisville and going to the EWBE was a great starting point for our KBT experience. Not only was it very fun to taste all the different tiers of bourbon, but this particular distillery had a lot of really fun interactive parts - they had videos, audio recordings, and reenactments of historical significance to the bourbon industry (Evan Williams was the first person to open a distillery in Kentucky, after all). And if you decide to start your personal bourbon trail here you’ll be mere blocks away from two other KBT distilleries; you could definitely make a great afternoon out of visiting them all! Check back with us periodically as we continue to write about all of the distilleries on the KBT, and hopefully this encourages people to get out and see some of the coolest places in our great state of Kentucky!
PS: if you do hit up any of the places in Louisville and you happen to be looking for a quick bite to eat, we highly recommend stopping into Royal’s Hot Chicken. Located just a few blocks away from Whiskey Row, it’s a great little chicken restaurant with a funky menu. Choose from 3-4 large chicken tenders or a chicken sandwich with varying levels of heat, then grab one or two of their awesome side dishes and dipping sauces. They even have good desserts - vanilla or chocolate milkshakes (you can have them add a slice of pie to the shakes too!), as well as coke floats. They also have a bar area for anyone who wants to enjoy a beer or three, and they have bourbon slushies - who can ask for anything more?! We loved it! Check out what we had to eat in the pics below and then put them on your list of great chicken places! Now go out there and hit the trail! We know you’re going to love it!
