Jim Beam American Stillhouse

This place rocked! I was very impressed with our tour guide’s knowledge and affection for bourbon. Especially her beloved Jim Beam products.
We did an off hour tour so we only had five people in our tour but our guide treated us like rock stars. We had a very personal, informative and interesting tour. She took us from start to finish in the bourbon process. I especially enjoyed the Knobb Creek portion of the tour. I got to personalize my own bottle which was a great souvenir to take home. The warehouses were really cool to see. As were the vats and the seven story still. We ended in a great tasting room where you can sample two shots worth of a good number of JB products in your own souvenir glass. I recommend trying the 12 year
In summary this is only my second distillery tour. The other being in TN but it’s very taboo to speak of them while visiting here lol It’s like Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter. The one who we don’t speak of. Anyway, I liked this tour way more than the other and highly recommend trying a tour.

Jim Beam is the fifth distillery tour I’ve taken in Kentucky. Let’s start with the grounds — absolutely beautiful and well maintained. The site is huge with many warehouses nestled throughout. The whole place is a postcard.
The experience starts at a visitor center modeled after their first stillhouse. Inside the center is where you register for a tour, learn distilling basics, and a massive gift shop.
There are many tours to register for, ranging from a tasting only and self guided experience to a 90 minute tour where you partake in the distilling process. Unfortunately tour availability was very limited during my visit. I had to wait an hour for the Warehouse tour — the only tour with availability. We had a very tight schedule but decided we could to fit it in. This tour focuses exclusively on the warehouses where the barrels are stored. These places are amazing. Tons of barrels packed tight, and stacked to the top of each warehouse. It’s crazy to imagine how in the world they are able to remove barrels from these places. From what we were told it’s a very labor intensive and manual process — basically a bunch of guys doing some heavy lifting. The guide did a great job of explaining the science on the positioning and mixing of the barrels for the main brand versus the small batches.
After the tour you a brought to the tasting room where a brief overview of the available whiskeys is given. I believe we were given 3 tastings — each of our choice. This included their premium brands.

The gift shop is also worth browsing and home to an amazing selection of branded merchandise. A bit of warning, if you’re a bourbon lover it’s nearly impossible to leave without buying a bunch of stuff.
The only real negative is that their tasting process is automated – you receive a card and scan it at various machines for tastings. I’ve taken plenty of brewery and distillery tours, and comparatively, this is a cold and unfriendly experience.
Overall our visit was a pleasant experience. Due to size and popularity getting on a tour can be difficult. I would advise getting here plenty early as they do not take reservations. Great for a one-​time visit when in the area.

Another stop on the Bourbon Trail done — it’s an interesting tour, but not the best on the trail (Buffalo Trace is much more interesting and fun). Everyone we met was super-​nice and friendly. Their gift shop has some great selections. A fun tour.

I went here after visiting the Bulleit Experience in Louisville on a Saturday afternoon. Plan on spending at least 2 hours to complete the tour.
The tour begins with a bus ride from the gift shop to the distillery. Upon entering the building the sweet smell of fermenting grains begins to surround you. The guide tells you how the grains used in making Jim Beam are chosen, mixed, ground, and then exposed to water for the first time and then cooked.
You then climb a flight of stairs where there are three vats of «beer» in various stages of fermentation. You are invited to dip a finger into the different vats for a taste. Nest we are led to a porch where the process of making and charring barrels is explained.
We were next led to the fermentation building where the guide opened a vat for us to smell. No tasting here is this is where the real stuff is made. The next stop is where the fun begins. There is a barrel filled with Knob Creek where after the guide talks about Knob Creek and then has two people from the tour «dump» bourbon out of the barrel into a snifter glass for everyone to sample. If you have never tried it, Single Barrel Knob Creek is some of the best bourbon you will ever taste.
After that you are shown a slow speed bottling line where you can personalize a bottle with your thumb print in the wax seal and then purchase it after the tour.
The remainder of the tour consists of seeing the bottling line, the Quality Control storage room where the 1^st and last bottle from every production run is kept for two years and then given to the employees; a room where samples of all the special, commemorative bottles from years past are on display and then to a rackhouse and finally the tasting room.

This place is a must visit stop on the bourbon trail. If you’ve visited a couple of distilleries you know the process is about the same. The difference is in what show you and how they do it. Beam lets you stick your finger in to sample the mash if you want (bitter oatmeal taste), see a barrel of bourbon dumped live and try a little small taste (only place on the trail I think they do this), and you get to wash a bottle out (with bourbon) and see it get filled. You can even buy «your bottle» and get it engraved, sort of like dipping it in the wax at Maker’s Mark.
The tour does a good job explaining the basics of bourbon distillation but the company doesn’t seem to arm their tour guides with as much information as the smaller operations. For example, they didn’t know if different bourbons use different grain mixes to get different flavors or if everything starts the same way. Our tour guide was really friendly and was talking to us after the tour when they could talk a bit more.
The sampling room is a little odd since you use a card and an automatic dispenser. They do have some interesting choices so plan carefully and don’t waste your sample on something you can get at your local bar for cheap. Oh and you get to keep the tasting glass.
Be sure and check out the world’s smallest distillery in the gift shop on the way out. If you like bourbon this place is a must visit.

Couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit the Jim Beam Stillhouse when it’s right off the highway on our way to the Interstate. The distillery was easy to find and located on beautiful grounds. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to do a full tour, but we did do a tasting. Kentucky has a law where you can only have two whiskey samplings at a time. I was hoping they would have a few options that are rare finds outside the liquor store but they did not.
Moving beyond the typical person behind the bar doing the pour for the tastings, they utilized the machine dispensers (think wine dispensers at Tastings). While this speeds things up I do think it lacks the opportunity for guest to ask questions and learn more beyond the typical elevator speech they are trained to give.
Beam isn’t one of my favorites, but I’m glad I got to visit.

What’s not to like? A quick tour through the warehouse for only $ 5.00 with 2 samples of bourbon afterwards. I’ve never had bourbon (I’m 54) so I found this sampling interesting. I found it interesting to learn the different ways to drink bourbon, the proof’s and that there were so many different flavors of bourbon. I like the honey bourbon over ice.
The grounds are beautiful and the store has a lot of fun facts and fun items to purchase.

Slightly above average. There are about 3 types of tours (warehouse, distillery, tasting). We took the warehouse tour and ended in the tasting room shortly after. The warehouses are usually 9 stories w/​stories surrounding them:) Why are they all black? Why are the trees, brick, and everything nearby black? Enjoy all of the fun facts. When you enter the warehouses, its breathtaking how many barrels if goodness the stack above you… almost scary as well.
Gift shop is on 2 floors so options and selections aren’t an issue. There’s even a small snack shop nearby… try the KY Nachos!
Tasting room is cool. Slide your card 2wice, if you want more samples, make friends w/​someone not into sippin’. I thought the presentation was slightly poor and impersonal. The tour guide scremed directions as another group was crowded in w/​ours (overlap) and then provided cards for tasting devices (slide card, hit button, sample pours). Otherwise, you can sample expensive tastes (Booker’s, Baker’s, or Basil Hayde, or Knob Creek), flavorful (Maple, Apple, Black Cherry, Fire, etc), or traditional.

Great visit to the largest distillery of Bourbon in the US. Very informative tour and opportunity to taste the many traditional and small batch whiskey/​bourbons. Staff are super friendly and knowledgeable. Able to watch the distilling and bottling process from start to finish. Go if you have the chance!

This was a great first stop on the bourbon trail. Beware the tours here sell out whereas none of the other distilleries we went to were sold out.
They really walked us through the process. Only downside is that the tour here is long. It’s supposed to be about 1 ½ hours. We had a tour guide who was SUPER chatty and our tour took almost an hour longer.

The wife and my last stop on our tour of Bourbon Trail distilleries was Jim Beam American Stillhouse. It wasn’t nearly as picturesque as Woodford Reserve or Maker’s Mark, both of which set the Bourbon Trail standard for rustic beauty. That said, the centerpiece of the Jim Beam American Stillhouse was it’s a new, state-​of-​the-​art visitor’s center that gave the sprawling complex an almost Disney-​esque aesthetic. In truth, I much prefer Beam’s small batch bourbons like Booker’s and Knob Creek to its mass-​produced Beam label spirits. As a result, my expectations for the tour weren’t too lofty expecting it and the subsequent tastings to be focused more on those large production bourbons. Boy, was I wrong!
Our tour guide exuded a friendly, good ol’ boy style. He struck me as someone who truly loved his bourbon and was following in his family’s footsteps by working at Jim Beam. His obvious passion and knowledge about Jim Beam and its bourbon distilling process made for a great tour. To my very pleasant surprise, we toured Beam’s small batch production facilities where Knob Creek was currently being distilled and bottled. Our guide provided a lot of Beam trivia that made the tour informative and unique. However, what set this tour apart from the other distilleries we visited up to that point was that it was extremely up close, hands on, and interactive. Stick your fingers into a fermentation tank to get a taste of the mash? Check! Get a sip of barrel-​strength bourbon straight from the barrel? Check! Pick out a bottle, wash it for filling, have it filled with Knob Creek Single Barrel, and personalize it after sealing? Check! Even the post-​tour tasting was unique with a high-​tech dispensing system which allowed for a personalized experience as we were able pick our sample pours from across Beam’s entire line of spirits to include its small batch labels and even an experimental bourbon.
The Jim Beam American Stillhouse was a very big, happy surprise. It surpassed my expectations by a country mile and even changed my opinion about Beam. As distilleries, Jim Beam American Stillhouse was in many ways the antithesis to Woodford Reserve and Maker’s Mark. However, where it mattered most, it delivered an equally informative and enjoyable tour experience and great bourbons. Jim Beam American Stillhouse is a must-​see destination.

I had a really great time on this tour, which packed a lot for $ 10. I went on a Thursday morning around 11 am, and it was great timing because there were only 5 of us on the tour with one of their guides named Matt. Matt was super helpful and informative, and very personable. The tour basically starts where the bourbon starts — in this small, long room where you see all of the ingredients that go into making bourbon. From there, you go upstairs and see different parts of bourbon aging process.
From there, you go into numerous different rooms and buildings to see different parts of the process, and one of the really fun parts was seeing their bottling process. You see this with their Knob Creek Single Barrel, and you get to basically label your own bottle and you get the chance, of course, to purchase it. But… I couldn’t say no, so that day I brought home a $ 45 bottle of bourbon my girlfriend bought for us. I have to say, you can definitely tell that you’re drinking a nice bottle of bourbon. Note: it’s also the same price as it is in the liquor store, so if you’ve wanted to try it, might as well grab your very own bottle while on the tour!
The tasting at the end of the tour was super fun. They have a tasting room and they give you this card that has two one-​ounce pours programmed on it, and they basically have self-​help dispensers (imagine soda dispensers, but much more hi-​tech) that are full of their different kinds of bourbon. The Jim Beam snifters they give you for your sample you get to keep, so it’s kept me good company while I drink the Knob Creek from the comfort of my home!

I’mGreat tour. Our guide was very pleasant and knowledgeable about the Beam brand. The gift store was stocked with anything you might want.
I will be back again.

Jim Beam is the best hands-​on experience tour on the bourbon trail.
Maker’s Mark you tried with the wax dipping, but at Jim Beam you can literally send your own bottle of Knob Creek down the bottling line then personalize your bottle with your thumb print set in black wax. Now that, my bourbon guzzling friends, is pretty frick’n cool! Of course I took video of the entire process. I like to call it the ‘bourbon birthing canal’. Please, Jim Beam, start using that on the tour.
Pete was our guide. He was witty and easy to understand. A+ because he let us stick our fingers in the mash, drink high wine as it was filled in the barrel and also for a sampling of a newly opened barrel.
The tasting room… baller. You don’t know how you will ever decide what to sample with so many options. You only get two choices (standard per all tours in Bardstown area), so grab a buddy and sample four. I appreciated the card and dispenser system. Instead of waiting my turn for a pour I just walked up to a machine, stuck the card in, selected my bourbon and boom… a fresh pour.
For a ‘big box’ bourbon distillery Jim Beam was pretty impressive. It’s not quaint and laden with wood beams and copper, but it certainly offers something diffferent.

Overall this was one of my favorite tours of the Kentucky bourbon trail, they let you try the bourbon right of out the barrel!
The property is beautiful too! They have a lot of options if you’re with a group and not everyone in your group likes bourbon.
They have a huge gift shop with lots of fun goodies to choose from. I got the Jim beam straw hat and it’s still one of my favorite hats.
The bourbon itself is good but not necessarily the best I’ve had on the trail. And you have to be careful with their specialty drinks, they’re not necessarily bourbon anymore because they add a lot of sugar and don’t use the right ratio of grain. But for the most part they’re pretty honest about that.
This place is very commercialized, so if you’re looking for that cute little quaint Kentucky charm then you may want to keep driving.
Overall I did have a lot of fun here but it does depend what your looking for.

Reserve your tour 48 Hrs ahead. Wouldn’t recommend just stopping by, as we did, because the tours were sold out. Perhaps if I make it back for the actual tour in the future my rating will change. They still allowed us to do a free tasting, which was nice. Theres a couple things you can walk around to such as the history of making the barrels and how the storage buildings work. Nice grounds. Try the Smoked Maple Bourbon.

Had a great time with the tour! This is the closet tour off Hwy 65. The guide did a great job, was fun and seemed to be enjoying her job. We «bottled» our own bottle of Knob Creek to bring home. The best part for me was the large black buildings that house the barrels. It was really cool walking through one. We also got to see and touch the 13 millionth barrel of whisky. Before the tour we had BBQ nachos at the smokehouse and while not a destination the food was good and hit the spot before the tour. The grounds are very pretty and you will absolutely smell he mash all around. The tour ends with a couple tasting of whisky and you get to keep your glass. Well worth the $ 10.

This wouldnt be a stop that I’d recommend if youre a true bourbon nut… their tasting room has quite a few «flavored» bourbons (honey, black cherry, cinnamon, etc), but also holds some gems like Basil Hayden and Bookers.
There is a little lunch spot (very meat heavy) — we had pulled pork sandwiches and mac and cheese… pretty tasty (we were also starving). We sat in little rocking chairs in the shade and relaxed a bit.
The gift shop was full of merchandise — if you need to shop for gifts, this is a great one to go to because of the variety.

I have gone on this tour twice now and may go on it more times in the future because I think it is the best done tour that I have gone on thus far on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. All of my out of town guests leave really understanding what bourbon is and why Kentucky is crazy about it.
The tour takes you deep into their manufacturing process. You start in their small batch area learning about bourbon, what makes a bourbon a bourbon, what their bourbon’s makeup is, and seeing the entire process through in one go. This is probably my favorite aspect of the tour. There are few distilleries that go into this detail. It’s a perfect first stop on the trail to get you acquainted with bourbon.
You get the chance to also see their large scale operation, with their massive stills and filtering moving faster than you could imagine. I even got to take a souvenir home when we got to pour out a bourbon barrel and the bung was given out. Two years latter I can still smell the sweet smell of bourbon on it.
You also get to see their bottle processing line and the bourbon barrels they currently have on site aging. And we can’t forget the tasting. Jim Beam has quite a few products, all of them are options in the tasting room. They give you a keycard with the option to try two. I came with a group of four, so we all tried different things. And then we got to keep our mini bourbon snifters!
All in all, money well spent!

My boyfriend and I were in town from Milwaukee and decided to give the Jim Beam tour a shot. Being from «Brew City» we’ve been on a fair share of «okay» big corp booze tours. I wasn’t overly excited about the tour as Jim Beam is a big company and I figured they would give a pretty standard tour and leave you in a gift shop. I was mainly just going to get some merch for my dad (aka Jim Beam’s biggest fan). Boy was I wrong! I had a fantastic time!
First, make sure you don’t come in «the back way», which is were our GPS took us. We ended up parking in a back lot and wandering around for a bit to find where we needed to go. We about missed our tour and I was pretty annoyed and crabby by time we finally found where we had to check in. But everything changed as soon as I walked in the door. The front desk team was very cheery. Even though the computers were running slowly printing tickets they maintained their cool and joked around with us.
Our tour guide (I think his name was Josh) was great too. Very funny and clearly knows his stuff. We learned about the history of Jim Beam, as well as the process. To my surprise the tour was very interactive! Our guide didn’t just talk at us for an hour. He asked up to participate in helping make bourbon. So cool! The tour takes you from the start of the process all the way to the end. Essentially, the group goes through the whole process of helping make and bottle bourbon. My boyfriend even got to participate in opening and pouring out a barrel of bourbon.
Near the end of the process we got to help «clean» the bottles for Knob Creek, with bourbon, before bottling the drinking bourbon.
Tour guests can even purchase their own bottle of Knob Creek which we cleaned, bottled and stamped with our wax thumbprint. You have the option to get in engraved as well. At the end of the tour Josh took us to the tasting room where we all received complimentary little Jim Bean tasting glasses. Free stuff, yay! We got to try 2 different kinds of bourbon. There were many different kinds, as well as a «new bourban» Jim Beam was testing out. Not being a big bourbon fan, I tried the Honey and the Maple. Very tasty. After the tour is finished you’re basically free to roam about the property. We walked around for a good 30 minutes after our tour to take pictures of the country side.
There is a «self-​guided» tour, but I would definitely recommend paying the couple bucks to do the guided tour. It’s well worth it. I would definitely recommend paying a visit if you’re in the area!