Bulleit is a major bourbon distillery in the United States. The brand bottles for several markets including the US, Canada, England, Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Mexico. To meet this demand, Bulleit operates two distilleries in Kentucky. Bulleit produces both bourbon and rye whiskey but made a name for itself due to a “spicier” tasting bourbon. Bulleit has grown rapidly in recent years. Therefore, they have constructed a lot of new buildings on the property. For that reason, a visit to Bulleit will look very different than some of the other “storied” brands of Kentucky bourbon that guests may visit on a Kentucky Bourbon Sampling Itinerary. The following is a review of my visit to the Bulleit Distillery.
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History
Bulleit bourbon started around 1830 when Augustus Bulleit created the first batch of whiskey. Augustus continued to make the whiskey locally until he passed in 1860. The Bulleit family continued to distill the whiskey. Tom Bulleit took over as owner and master distiller in 1987. Tom began to distill his own recipe under the family name. 1987 is widely considered the start of the modern Bulleit whiskey brand because of this change. In 1997, Seagrams purchased the brand and began producing larger quantities and offering wider distribution. 1999 & 2000 saw the introduction of the brand to many foreign countries including Australia, the UK, and Germany. Today, Bulleit is one of the fastest-growing whiskey brands in the US.
Bulleit markets itself as a frontier whiskey. While this doesn’t have a defined meaning in the whiskey business, Bulleit has defined this as a high rye-content bourbon. This is a more unique characteristic because it adds a bite to the bourbon. In the bourbon world, most distilleries go for a smooth flavor profile. Thus, Bulleit sets its flavor profile apart with this mash bill.
Tour, Tasting, or Something Else?
To align with the recent growth of Bulleit, the company invested in new state-of-the-art distilleries that opened in 2017. A new visitor’s center on the same property opened in 2019. Therefore, visitors will experience a modernized whiskey-making process at Bulleit. This is something completely different from traditional bourbon distilleries like Woodford Reserve or Four Roses.
All guests will start their journey at the visitor’s center no matter what the plans are for the rest of their Bulleit experience. The facility is large, clean, and well-maintained. The brick and grey metal building gives the brand an industrial feel that will be matched by the distillery buildings if you chose to tour them later. Inside the visitor’s center, guests will find sitting and waiting areas, an exhibit on the history of the Bulleit brand, a bar, and the obligatory merchandise shop.
Similar to most whiskey distilleries, guests can book openings for tours and tastings in person. However, most time slots will not have an opening on the day of. For that reason, I recommended that visitors obtain reservations prior to arrival.
Tour
The standard tour at Bulleit Distillery is the “Frontier Whiskey Distillery Tour”. This tour consists of a visit to the distillery which is followed by a full-sensory tasting of Bulleit whiskeys over the course of an hour. Prior to the tour starting, guests are able to explore the visitor’s center for some information on the history of Bulleit and its founders.
Since the distillery is not located right at the visitor’s center, guests board a tour bus that ferries participants to the distillery. The bus is pretty comfortable and is more than adequate for a quick ride to the distilleries. While on the bus, the tour guides provide an overview of the property and everything that you will experience. Guests unload at what appears to be a brand-new, modern distillery building. One of the first stops on the tour is the control room where much of the automated whiskey-making is handled. Guests aren’t able to actually enter the room, but they are able to see the complete operations through a number of large windows looking into the room.
From there, the tour will take visitors into a couple of rooms where the whiskey-making occurs. These include the grain grinding room and the room where many of the fermentation tanks are stored. Because of the industrial operation at Bulleit, this is about as much as visitors are able to see. The tour concludes in a walkway just outside the fermentation room. Displays here describe the barreling process, the aging process, and the finishing process of the whiskey. At the conclusion of the tour, visitors board the bus back to the visitor’s center for the tasting experience. Continue reading below for information on the tasting.
Tasting
The tasting experience at Bulleit can be done as part of the tour or a completely separate 30-minute experience. In designing the tasting, Bulleit created an environment for guests to use their 5 senses (taste, smell, touch, sight, and sound). Personally, I don’t know if it enhanced the taste of the whiskey, but it is definitely a unique experience and something you will remember.
Bulleit performs the tasting in a room that looks like a big, modern classroom. All visitors are given pours of four different Bulleit whiskeys. This covers all the whiskeys that Bulleit makes: traditional Bulleit, Bulleit Rye, Bulleit Single Barrel, and Bulleit 10 Year. Accompanying each whiskey pour is a smell shaker and an audio/visual display. The tour and tasting guide encourages guests to shake and smell the scents prior to experiencing the whiskey. The goal of this sensory experience is to highlight some of the taste profiles in the whiskey.
The tasting is very well done and is very different from most whiskey distillery tastings. Again, I don’t know that it necessarily enhanced the flavors of Bulleit for me, but I assume many may feel differently. On the other hand, it didn’t detract from the tasting. If anything, it makes me remember the Bulleit tasting more.
Something Else
Like many other distilleries, Bulleit offers a number of specialty events outside the realm of the traditional tour or tasting experience. While these do routinely change, some examples of special events include single-barrel tastings, cocktail-making classes, paint-and-sip workshops, fairs with live music and food trucks, as well as non-alcoholic options like candle making. The dates for all of these will be vastly different and only available on some weekends. If these happen to align with your travels to Kentucky, definitely take a look at them. Alternatively, if you are looking ahead far enough you may be able to plan your trip around some of these if they are particularly interesting.
The other option is to visit the Bulleit visitor’s center and do a self-guided tasting. If tours and tastings are sold out, the visitor’s center bar serves drinks. Cocktails made with Bulleit as well as small flights are available. The flights at this bar typically only include three of the whiskies, so you will miss out on one of the options that you get in the tasting.
Reservation Process
As Bulleit is a large and modern distillery, the reservations for all their tours, tastings, and other experiences are done online. Guests are able to visit Bulleit’s Visit Us page, to see all options available. As with most of the distilleries in Kentucky, I highly recommend reservations. Tours, tastings, and other reservation events regularly book up. However, availability at Bulleit isn’t as bad as many of the other distilleries in Kentucky that sell out months in advance.
For example, at the time of writing, reservations for the current week were non-existent. However, tour reservations were available about two weeks out while tasting reservations were available the next week. Unless you are booking in the height of the most popular seasons, booking about 1 – 1.5 months out should mean that all time options are available to you.
Cost
Finally, we’ll take a look at the cost. Bulleit charges $24.20 per guest for a tour and tasting. This price includes both the ticket costs and service fees. A tasting-only experience is cheaper at $19.80 per guest. However, in my opinion, the roughly $4 difference between the two is so small that I don’t know why the tasting-only option would be selected if the tour isn’t sold out. Therefore, I highly recommend going with the tour and tasting combo or another special event if those line up with your budget and schedule.
In comparison to other distilleries, these prices are roughly in line with the norm. There will be more expensive options like Wild Turkey and less expensive (free) options like Buffalo Trace. However, many distilleries charge about $20 – $25 so these prices seem appropriate for a tasting and tour.
