Barton 1792 Distillery Tour 2020 (Video)

We visited the Barton 1792 Distillery back in July 2020, although unfortunately, that is no longer possible. Like Buffalo Trace, this Sazarac owned distillery also did not charge for their tours, which was very cool. It was a great place to visit, and although they, like the Buffalo Trace Distillery, are not technically on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, the Barton 1792 Distillery Tour used to be an essential stop in everyone’s itinerary. However, you can still read all about our visit in our Barton 1792 Distillery Tour Review!

Tour

The Barton 1792 distillery opened back up to visitors with full tours and tastings back in 2020. Unfortunately, it closed to the public again soon after. At the time, there was a new gift shop and tasting center just outside of the distillery grounds. The idea being that visitors can be pre-screened for COVID-19 prior to entering the distillery proper. That’s smart. Very smart. A perfect plan until we came to visit. We have been to Barton 1792 many times so we figured we knew where we were going, and went directly to the visitor center on the distillery grounds. We were greeted by “So how did you get past the security checkpoint?” Fortunately, they checked our temperature (maybe we weren’t the first to make this mistake??) and let us stay and take the tour.

The Distillery

The Barton 1792 Distillery is a bit different from many of the other distilleries on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. It is purely industrial. The distillery exists to “get the job done” and that it does. They produce and bottle the 1792 bourbon line, the Very Old Barton bourbons, as well as a slew of other Sazarac products. Read all about our visit in our Barton 1792 Distillery Tour Review!

Check out our short video

History

The Barton 1792 Distillery, like the Buffalo Trace Distillery, is owned by the Sazerac company. It was established in 1879 and is the oldest operating distillery in Bardstown Kentucky. However it was not continuously operating as it was shut down during prohibition. The distillery has a complicated history and was originally named the Tom Moore Distillery, after it’s founder, although it might not have had that name when it first opened, when it was probably the Mattingly & Moore distillery (which was prior to that the Willett and Frenke Distillery) which was located near to the current distillery site. The flagship brands produces are Very Old Barton and 1792 (formerly known as Ridgemont Reserve 1792). It’s too bad the public isn’t allowed to visit anymore, other than while selecting a barrel. Learn more in our Barton 1792 Distillery Tour Review!

Learn More

We also have a full write-up of our visit, including lots of photos, in our Barton 1792 Distillery Tour Review! Unfortunately, public tours are no longer available, so you’ll definitely want to read all about it in our review!

Or, maybe you would prefer to learn about some of Barton 1792 Distillery’s bourbons in our Barton 1792 225th Anniversary Bourbon Review, our Very Old Barton Bourbon Review and our 1792 Small Batch Bourbon Review.

Original Visit: July 2020. Updated July 2024.

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