Members of the popular Kentucky Bourbon Trail continue to expand and improve their facilities for visitors, who now number more than a half million a year.
In mid-April, Wild Turkey distillery near Lawrenceburg opened its new $4 million visitors center in a new building designed to look like a Kentucky tobacco barn.
The 9,140-square-foot visitors center, which has a sweeping view of the Kentucky River 275 below, has exhibits on the history of the distillery, a gift shop and a tasting room. The distillery is expecting its visitation to increase this year to 80,000 from last year’s 62,000 visitors.
The visitor center is part of $100 million the Italian company Gruppo Campari has spent on the site since purchasing the distillery in 2009, including a new bottling plant and new warehouses.
Meanwhile, a few weeks earlier, Woodford Reserve Distillery opened a renovated and expanded visitor center at its facility near Versailles, Kentucky.
The $1.9 million project included a dedicated tasting room, updates to retail shops, new displays and other infrastructure improvements.
Last year approximately 130,000 people visited the distillery in Woodford County, which is part of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.
Parent company Brown-Forman also has invested $35 million to include new bourbon maturation warehouses and stills and improvements to the bottling line.
