An Old Fashioned at Repeal at Hotel Distil
These bars, restaurants and distilleries are worth your attention during Derby weekend and all year long.
Louisville is the first stop for many on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail and for good reason: The lively city is full of great restaurants, fun bars and swanky accommodation. Many spots are pouring allocated bottles you can only hope to find at liquor stores with high markups in other cities.
Whether you’re fighting the crowds on Derby weekend, in town for a concert, the Bourbon & Beyond Festival or just exploring the area, these are spots you shouldn’t miss.
The Bar at Fort Nelson
This spot at the Michter’s Fort Nelson Distillery in downtown Louisville (across from the Louisville Slugger Museum) stays open after distillery tours shut down for the day, and would be a worthy bar to visit even if you didn’t get to sneak peeks at the stills and washbacks. The menu is a combination of classic cocktails from historian Dave Wondrich, as well as modern creations from the bar team. It has all the fancy tools of a world class bar and machines from around the world to make top-notch ice, but no pretension. Staff on site when I visited with my parents patiently showed us how they use brass ice stamps, showed us how they were mixing up cocktails, and explained the reasonably-priced whiskey flights.
A dining area created from a converted horse stall at Barn8.
Barn8 Restaurant at Hermitage Farm
This restaurant is about a 25-minute drive from downtown Louisville, and worth the drive to check out the farm-to-table operations housed in a former dairy and horse barn (some tables are inside repurposed horse stalls). Chef Seth Kinder’s menu focuses on locally-sourced proteins and seasonal produce, and the restaurant’s owners, Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown, who founded 21c Museum Hotels, have filled the space with eclectic artwork, and an outside ArtWalk with live video projects and a coordinated soundscape. I had an “Office”-inspired Bourbon, Beets and Battlestar Galactica from the creative cocktail menu made with farm grown beets and lemon thyme, but the restaurant also has a long list of rare whiskies from its small batch program.
Hotel Distil uses oak barrels to grill its steaks.
Repeal Oak-Fired Steakhouse at Hotel Distil
Nestled on the first floor of Hotel Distil on Whiskey Row, this steakhouse is a tough reservation to snag, but worth it. The steaks are cooked over the flames of oak barrels (how cool is that?) and their swoon worthy brioche pull-apart dinner rolls are also the base of the decadent Jefferson’s Bourbon Bread Pudding. The cocktail program is on point, but the steakhouse has an impressive reserve bourbon list, and offers special flights; there’s currently a special Blanton’s flight to celebrate the Kentucky Derby.
The barrel seating at North of Bourbon.
A bit ashamed it took me a minute to get the clever name of this Germantown spot that is a marriage of bourbon country and creole and Cajun food from New Orleans (Bourbon Street), but the combination sings. On my brunch visit, the beignets from Chef Lawrence Weeks were a big hit, along with the buttermilk salad, and the cocktails were exceptional. The I Wish You Would used Wild Turkey in a light-yet-decadent milk punch, and the Frozen Kentucky Coffee comes with a cup you can keep in a nod to the Erin Rose in New Orleans. A fun touch is the booths are housed inside giant “bourbon barrels” and the floors, bar and tabletops are made with reclaimed wood from Maker’s Mark Distillery.
The still at the Old Forester distillery in Louisville.
George’s Bar at Old Forester Distillery
The Old Forester is one of the best distillery tours in downtown Louisville because you get to see the soup-to-nuts process in miniature if you don’t have time to get to the bigger operations outside of town. You’ll see everything from fermentation to barrel making and aging, as well as a guided tasting at the end. But leave time for a visit to George’s Bar at the end. Depending on availability, it might be one of the old places you’ll get a chance to buy a pour of the celebrated Birthday Bourbon, along with other whiskey flights and cocktails.
Copper & Kings Distillery
This Butchertown distillery has set the standard for American Brandy, but also makes liqueurs (the Café and Chocolat are favorites). They serve cocktails made with both on their rooftop bar, with great views of the city, along with burgers and snacks.
