Jim Beam’s new visitors center

Today is the official grand opening of the Jim Beam American Stillhouse, the new visitors center at the Clermont, Ky., distillery. But the Stillhouse has been open for a few weeks, and I stopped by on one of my trips to and from Bardstown during the Kentucky Bourbon Festival to look around and snap a few photos.

Jim Beam is the world’s top-selling bourbon and the western gateway to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail tour, and now it has a visitors experience worthy of that status. The new building is a replica of a 1940s-era stillhouse and contains a staircase from Beam’s original stillhouse, as well as a giant copper column still.

The new visitors experience is more interactive and better explains the bourbon-making process. But don’t worry: You can still take a picture with the statue of Booker Noe.

The Stillhouse is open until 4:30 p.m. EST seven days a week until January, when it will close on Sundays until March. If you’ve been to Jim Beam before, take note: You now enter the property on a new road that winds back to the Stillhouse (“Almost there!” a helpful sign announces). Tours ($8) last an hour and 15 minutes; beginning Oct. 15, you can make online reservations. Click here for more information.

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