Bourbon tourism is booming in Louisville. It was not always the case and Louisville’s Bourbon Bars are part of the reason for this growth in tourism. Back in the early 1990s, Susan Riegler wrote an article for the Courier-Journal about where the best Bourbon Bar was located. Louisville had a couple of spots with a wide selection of Bourbons, namely the bars at the Brown and Seelbach Hotels, but Susan found the best Bourbon Bar was Delilah’s in Chicago. That ruffled a few feathers because it was assumed that the best Bourbon Bar would be in Kentucky.

Within a year of the publishing of that article, The Galt House opened D’Marie’s Bourbon Bar. The bar was named for he Galt House owner, Al Schneider’s, boat. It had a nautical theme to the décor and in keeping with the fashion of the Galt House, it was on the tacky side of décor. However, it was located on the top floor of the Galt House and had a wonderful view of the Louisville waterfront. The Bourbon selection included every bottle sold in Kentucky at that time. They poured the Bourbon into brandy snifters and offered flights of Bourbon. It was an excellent Bourbon Bar and lasted many years until the Galt House decided to expand their restaurant to include the entire top floor and they moved their Bourbon Bar down to the third floor and renamed it Jockey Silks.

Bourbon was just coming out of its slump in the late 1990s. By the beginning of the 21st century Bourbon was growing and Bourbon Tourism was beginning to take hold. In 2005 Jason Brauner and John Morrison decided to open a restaurant with a Bourbon theme. The restaurant would have a Bourbon Bar with every Bourbon available in Kentucky, offer flights of Bourbon, and serve top quality food with Bourbon in the recipes. They hoped to be the first such restaurant in Louisville to have such a theme, but they were beaten to the goal by a couple of months by the opening of the now defunct Maker’s Mark bar in Fourth Street Live. Following on the heels of Bourbons Bistro, Larry Rice opened the Silver Dollar Saloon with an extensive Bourbon Bar just about a year later.

This growing interest in Bourbon and Bourbon Bars caused several other places to expand their Bourbon selection and advertise themselves as Bourbon Bars. The Brown, The Seelbach and Marriott Hotels did this expansion and a Bourbon Bar opened at Slugger Field. This is when Louisville Tourism in the form of Stacey Yates and her team of Angela Weisser and Nancy Stephen started promoting Bourbon Dinners at Bourbons Bistro and created the Urban Bourbon Trail. The Bourbon Bar scene in Louisville began to explode. By the end of the decade there were a couple of dozen bars that described themselves as “Bourbon Bars”. 

The Bourbon Bar scene in Louisville is now a vibrant, still growing and changing scene. It includes many of the original Bourbon Bars, along with several distillery and cocktail bars. There are many events being held at these bars that attract tourists as well as, local Bourbon drinkers. Bourbon Bars are here to stay and the best Bourbon Bars are now in the City of Louisville.

Photos Courtesy of Rosemary Miller