The St. Louis Bourbon Festival will take place on October 6, 2023. This is the third year for the festival. I will be there in their cigar area talking Bourbon and cigars along with Steve Fante of Yellowstone.

The St. Louis Bourbon Festival has been put together by the St. Louis Bourbon Society. The society was founded by James Thomas in 2016 as a Facebook, online society. Thomas states that in the beginning, the society was mostly online and they only had a couple of gatherings that were mostly bottle sharing events. This changed about a year and a half later when Andrew Chostner moved to St. Louis and joined the Society. Andrew was very enthused about having meetings and events. James was working two jobs and was happy to have someone who could organize such events and made Andrew a co-founder on the new St. Louis Bourbon Society which includes regular meetings, has a charitable clause in their bylaws, and holds events on a regular basis.

I recently was in St. Louis while ding a Bourbon cruise on the American Countess and met James and Drew for lunch. They told me that the event takes place in several buildings that were part of an old brewery. The event has several educational programs, over 500 brands of whiskey represented in the tasting area, brand ambassadors and Master Distillers from several distilleries, all in one night. A portion of every ticket sale will go to benefit The St. Louis Hero Network for First Responders. There will also be live music and food trucks available for the patrons to enjoy. Ticket price is $90.00 a person, but it will be well worth the cost to be able to meet the distiller and dink samples of their products.

Photos Courtesy of Rosemary Miller and Michael Veach