Bourbon Events and Experiences in Lexington
Tastings, pairing dinners, releases and barrel picks you can actually get to, plus the tasting rooms you can book any week of the year. Everything here has a source, and anything dated comes off the page the day after it happens.
Every other bourbon events page still has you buying tickets to a festival that ended in January.
The Bourbon Pipeline
Two kinds of thing live here. Dated events are one-time: they show up with a date and remove themselves once the date passes, so this page can never sell you a ticket to something that already happened. Standing experiences are the tasting rooms, flights and barrel pick programs available any week, which is what keeps the page useful in the quiet stretches of the calendar.
Dates and prices are quoted from the organizer, not estimated by us. Anything outside Fayette County is grouped separately and labeled with its city.
Coming up in Lexington
Sippin' with Griffin: Leiper's Fork Distillery
TastingWednesday, September 9, 2026, 5:30 p.m.
Marriott Lexington Griffin Gate, 1800 Newtown Pike
Part of the hotel's recurring guided-tasting series, run as a BourbonCon showcase.
Source: VisitLEX
Sippin' with Griffin: Burnt Tavern Bourbon
TastingWednesday, October 14, 2026, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Marriott Lexington Griffin Gate, 1800 Newtown Pike
Welcome cocktail, guided tasting and chef-curated pairings. $35 general admission, $28 for social members.
Source: VisitLEX
POUR Spirits Summit
FestivalSaturday, November 7, 2026, 5 p.m.
Manchester Reserve and Music Hall, in the Distillery District
Producers across bourbon, whiskey, tequila, rum and vodka alongside local chefs. Attendance is capped at 500. Lexington is the series' founding city.
Source: POUR Spirits Summit
BourbonCon
FestivalJanuary 15 to 16, 2027
Marriott Lexington Griffin Gate Golf Resort and Spa, on Newtown Pike
The 2027 dates are announced, so this is a real date rather than an expected return. Billed as the event's fifth year.
Source: BourbonCon
Worth the drive
Outside Fayette County, close enough to be worth the gas.
Kentucky Bourbon Festival
FestivalSeptember 10 to 13, 2026
114 N 5th Street, Bardstown
The big one, about an hour from Lexington in Bardstown.
Source: Kentucky Bourbon Festival
Bourbon on the Banks
FestivalSaturday, October 3, 2026, with events October 1 to 3
River View Park, Frankfort
More than 70 distilleries, plus food, music and shopping. About 30 minutes from Lexington.
Source: Bourbon on the Banks
The Bardstown Collection Release Weekend
ReleaseNovember 19 to 21, 2026
Participating distilleries, Bardstown and Nelson County
A Thursday release party opens the weekend, then individual distilleries release their own expressions Friday and Saturday. Proceeds go to hospitality and tourism scholarships.
Source: Kentucky Bourbon Trail
Bookable any week in Lexington
No date needed. These run year-round.
Barrel House Distilling private barrel picks
Barrel pickStanding program, by arrangement
Barrel House Distilling Co., 1200 Manchester Street, in the Distillery District
Half barrels carry a 100-bottle minimum; full barrels are also available. Their form says plainly that submitting it "does not guarantee a pick," so treat it as the start of a conversation rather than a booking.
Source: Barrel House Distilling
Dark Arts Whiskey House tastings
Bookable any weekBookable year-round
Dark Arts Whiskey House, 1170 Manchester Street, in the Distillery District
Two public experiences: the Alchemical Journey guided tasting, four half-ounce pours of the core lineup, and Thief from the Barrel, four half-ounce pours drawn from the cask with optional bottling. They also run a barrel pick program, but their site does not say whether it is open to the public, so we do not claim it is.
Source: Dark Arts Whiskey House
Justins' House of Bourbon guided tastings
Bookable any weekBookable year-round
Justins' House of Bourbon, 601 W Main Street, downtown
Three seated Lexington experiences in the back speakeasy, bookable on Tock: Grain to Glass at noon ($125), Dusty Hunting at 2 p.m. ($175), and Icons of Bourbon at 4 p.m. ($225), all per person. Book the Lexington listing, not the Louisville one.
Source: Tock
New Era Whiskey tasting room and social club
Bookable any weekOpen since September 2, 2026
New Era Whiskey, 333 E Short Street, downtown
A distillery, tasting room, gift shop and members' social club that opened September 2, 2026. Founder Zane Brammell told WKYT it is "the only bottle social club tied to a distillery, tied to a whiskey brand," which is his claim rather than something we have checked.
Source: New Era Whiskey
Town Branch Single Barrel Program
Barrel pickStanding program, by arrangement
Lexington Brewing and Distilling Co., 401 Cross Street, downtown
Open to "retailers, bars, and whiskey enthusiasts" in their own words, so individuals are not shut out. Pick in person or remotely across bourbon, single malt and rye, bottled at cask strength with a custom label.
Source: Lexington Brewing and Distilling
Bookable any week, worth the drive
Larrikin Bourbon Company tasting room
Bookable any weekWednesday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday noon to 6 p.m.
Larrikin Bourbon Company, 1319 Versailles Road, Lawrenceburg
A veteran-owned craft distillery about 25 miles from Lexington. The Versailles Road address is in Lawrenceburg, not Lexington, which is easy to misread. Tasting flights, barrel tastings and cocktails; reservations encouraged, walk-ins welcome.
Source: Bourbon Country
Annual, next date not announced
These happen on a rough yearly rhythm. We keep them here with what was last held rather than letting them vanish for eleven months, and we do not invent a return date the organizer has not published.
Bourbon & Bubbles Lexington
Annual eventLast held January 17, 2026. No 2027 date announced.
Central Bank Center, downtown
The January 2026 event was the inaugural one, so a second year is likely but not promised. We record what was held rather than predicting a return date nobody has published.
Source: Bourbon & Bubbles
Heard something? Tell us
A barrel pick your bar is running, a release date a distillery mentioned, a dinner that has not been posted anywhere yet. You do not need a link. Tell us what you heard and where you heard it.
Tips are not published. What you send goes to a queue for us to verify. If it checks out, an entry appears with a source on it. If it does not, it stays internal. Nothing you type here goes on the page as you typed it.
Related
- Coming soon to Lexington tracks new restaurants, bars and shops from announcement to opening day.
- The full Lexington events calendar, for everything that is not bourbon.
- Lexington restaurant rankings, updated nightly.
Frequently asked questions
How often is this page updated?
It is swept weekly, and dated events remove themselves automatically the day after they happen. That second part is the whole point. Most bourbon event listings are written once and abandoned, which is why searching for bourbon events in Lexington so often returns a festival that happened in January. Nothing on this page can rot in place that way, and every entry carries the date it was last touched.
What counts as a bourbon event here?
Something you can actually attend or book: a tasting, a pairing dinner, a bottle release, a barrel pick, a pop-up, or a festival. We also list standing experiences that are available any week, like bookable tasting flights and barrel pick programs, because there are stretches of the calendar with few dated events and a page that goes empty in those weeks is not useful. What we do not do is republish the same list of distillery addresses that every other bourbon page in Kentucky already has.
Why are some events outside Lexington on this page?
Because the best bourbon events in Kentucky are often a short drive away, and pretending otherwise would make the page less useful. Anything outside Fayette County is grouped separately and labeled as worth the drive, with its city named, so you always know before you click whether something is in town. Bardstown is about an hour out and Frankfort about thirty minutes.
Do you list rumors about upcoming releases or events?
Not on this page. We track unconfirmed tips internally, but nothing reaches this page without a source we can link, and there is no setting that changes that. Unconfirmed items appear only in our weekly newsletter, in a clearly labeled rumor section that says outright it is unverified. If it is on this page, we found a source. If we could not, it is not here.
How do I submit an event or a tip?
Use the tip form on this page. A link helps most, but you do not need one: if you heard something from a bartender or saw a sign at a distillery, tell us that and tell us where you heard it. Tips go to a moderation queue and are never published automatically. We verify each one before it becomes an entry, and if we cannot verify it, it either stays in the queue or gets filed as an internal rumor.
Do businesses pay to be listed here?
No. Nothing on this page is paid, sponsored, or submitted for a fee, and no distillery, bar, or event organizer can buy a place in it or a position within it. Source links are marked nofollow, which means they pass no search ranking benefit, so a listing here is not worth anything to a business except that people find out the event is happening.
About this page
This directory launched on September 7, 2026, with every entry checked against its own source the day before. Dated entries remove themselves the day after they pass rather than waiting for someone to notice.
Where an organizer publishes a price or a time, we quote it as published. Where an annual event has no announced next date, the entry says when it was last held instead of predicting a return, because a predicted date is a guess wearing a fact's clothing.
One entry carries an attributed claim rather than a stated one. New Era Whiskey's founder told WKYT his is the only bottle social club tied to a distillery and a whiskey brand. That is his description of his own business, and we could not verify the widely repeated line calling it Lexington's first combined distillery, tasting room and social club, so we do not print it.
Source links open in a new tab and are marked nofollow. We link them so you can check our work, not to send them traffic. Nothing on this page is paid or sponsored.