Bourbon Distillery Tour Transportation
Planning a trip along the bourbon trail and to Buffalo Trace Distillery is exciting but the number of options available to you online can be overwhelming. While some guests prefer planning their own bourbon country experience, others prefer to enlist a professional to manage all the moving parts and provide transportation to allow for an additional layer of responsibility during your visits to Distilleries.
Read on for our tips to selecting a quality transportation partner.
Finding a Transportation Service
When choosing to book with a third-party transportation company, properly vetting them is crucial to ensuring you understand what you are paying for and that, ultimately, you have a the best possible experience.
When properly vetting a Bourbon Country transportation partner, it is important to look for the following things before committing to payment or entering into an agreement:
- Online presence
- Website
- Professionally maintained and free of errors/typos
- List of vehicle and package options
- Review Sites (Trip Advisor, Google, Yelp)
- How do their clients/customers rate them?
- How do the owners respond to feedback?
- Absence from these platforms should be a red flag
- Do they only “sell” their packages on third-party sites like Viator, TripAdvisor, etc.
- Website
- Transparency in fees (e.g., do they publicize that Buffalo Trace Distillery offers “complimentary” experiences?)
- Are they licensed and insured, registered with Secretary of State, DOT, and BBB? Do they provide information about these licenses and insurance policies?
- Do they offer vehicle maintenance records?
- Do they own their vehicles?
- Do they meet or exceed all state and federal laws regarding safety, insurance coverages, vehicle maintenance and annual inspections?
If you have doubts or questions about a potential transportation company, please feel free to reach out to the Distillery at reservations@buffalotrace.com. We’d be happy to provide any additional information that we may have, including our knowledge about, and previous experience in dealing with, the company at question if applicable.
No transportation companies are authorized to advance book and sell reservation spots to Buffalo Trace Distillery. We do have working relationships with transportation companies that have a proven track record of best-in-class business practices including safety, ethics, and pricing.
Directions and Parking
DISTILLERY ADDRESS
113 Great Buffalo Trace Frankfort, KY 40601
NAVIGATION
For directions to and around the distillery,use the Google Maps link below and/or refer to the adjacent parking map.
Our Visitor Parking Lot opens at 8:00am EST (Monday-Saturday) and 10:30am EST (Sunday).
Guests should enter via our main entrance at 113 Great Buffalo Trace and follow signs to the Visitor Parking Lot. Please do not use the Truck Entrance located at the traffic light/Fair Oaks Lane.
Parking is limited and we recommend carpooling when possible. Guests traveling with large vehicles (charter bus, RV, truck with trailer, etc.) should email reservations@buffalotrace.com for special instructions.
FAQs
The calendar will open at 9:00am EST on the first Tuesday of the month for tours the following month.
For example, the calendar for April tours will open on Tuesday, March 7 at 9:00am EST at https://reservations.buffalotracedistillery.com.
Here are some helpful tips for when the reservation calendar opens:
● Set a reminder to be on the reservation site a few minutes before 9:00 am EST
● Be flexible with your availability – both time and date
● The calendar currently limits reservation capacities to 12 guests
● Look for tours that begin in and around the same timeframe if you need to split the group between those tours
● Demand for weekends far exceeds what we see for weekdays
● Our tour offerings begin at 10:00am Monday-Saturday and 11:30am on Sunday
● Our last tour of the day is at 3:30pm
● Tours during our busy season March-November could sell out in a matter of 1-2 minutes once the calendar launches
Add your name to our Wait List hosted on our reservation site. If space opens, our reservations team will contact you to fill those spots via email and/or text based on the information you entered on the waitlist. Please only enter your information once.
If we can book your group, you will receive an automated email and text from our reservation system, WRSTBND.
If you do not receive a confirmation email and/or text 48 hours prior to your planned visit, please be sure to check-in with our team at the Freehouse Welcome Center on the day of your visit to see if there were any late cancellations. We do allow for walk-up bookings when space is available.
We do offer complimentary tasting opportunities throughout the day, if you do not have a guided tour reservation. We do not pre-book these experiences. For more details, please check in at the welcome center upon arrival.
Our Gift Shop is open daily, and no reservation is required to shop. However, all guests should still check-in at our Freehouse Welcome Center for ID check and wristbands.
Our state Gift Shop license allows us to sell a portion of our award-winning bourbon portfolio in the Distillery Gift Shop including Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, EH Taylor Jr. Small Batch, Blanton’s Single Barrel, Weller Special Reserve, and Sazerac Rye. These products are also in short supply and as such, are not available every day in our Gift Shop just as you see with our partner retailers.
Unfortunately, we cannot disclose future bottle deliveries. We can only tell you what is on the shelf for the current day. This information is published each morning on our website - https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/product-availability.
Please note that although our bourbons may be available when we open, it is not guaranteed to be in stock when you arrive as it is made available to visitors as they arrive at the Distillery and we are not able to pre-sell or hold these products.
We’d love to include you in our quarterly newsletter, Happenings at the Trace. Sign up here.
No, but registration is recommended to guarantee a spot. Our Visit Us page will describe the tour opportunities and allow you to reserve a spot.
The Trace Tour is open to visitors of all ages. All other tours are open to guests that are 12 years of age and older and accompanied by an adult. Guests may also utilize our playground facilities daily between 9am and 8pm.
The Visitor Center and Gift Shop are ADA accessible. The Trace Tour is ADA accessible.
Yes, we are proud to partner with Staxx BBQ to offer our Firehouse Sandwich Stop seasonally between April and October.
Enjoy a delicious lunch at our Firehouse Sandwich Stop, located just a short walk away from the Visitor's Center at Buffalo Trace Distillery.
The Sandwich Stop opened in the summer of 2010 and is inside of the original distillery firehouse, built in the 1930's. See authentic fire coats and boots once worn by distillery workers in the 50's and 60's when the Firehouse was in full swing at the Distillery and take your picture next to the 1964 Ford fire truck! We are able to take preorders for groups of 10 to prepare box lunches.
We are happy to partner with Staxx BBQ to operate the Firehouse Sandwich Stop!
Only outdoor seating under an awning is available at the Firehouse Sandwich Stop.
Guests are asked to park in our regular visitor parking area when visiting the Firehouse Sandwich Stop.
Hours
Wed & Thu: 11am-2pm
Fri & Sat: 11am-2:30pm
Sun: 11am-2pm
Contact the Firehouse Sandwich Stop
(502) 783-5673
boxlunchorders@gmail.com
