A Unique and Custom Bourbon Experience

As February draws to a close the city of Louisville, Kentucky, the home of the immortal baseball bat the Louisville Slugger visitors to this Mecca of the great American pass-time will be able to visit the Louisville Slugger Museum and sample a truly unique and fascinating bourbon experience. Hillerich and Bradsby, the company that operates Louisville Slugger, in its modern incarnation is debuting a mixed bourbon distillery experience. They’re calling this new enterprise “Bourbon and Billets” a Franchise with Woodcraft Bourbon Blender.

With that name comes a whole lot of #history!#SluggerMuseum #BaseballHistory #GoToLouisville pic.twitter.com/Wgf9qyPcDz

— Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory (@SluggerMuseum) February 10, 2022

“We’re all about creating unforgettable experiences and that’s really what we do here,” said Andrew Soliday, Marketing Director for Hillerich and Bradsby. Soliday told local outlet WDRB News the story, with a bit of history.

“J Frederick Hillerich immigrated here from Germany and he was a woodworker. And he worked by making barrels in the burgeoning bourbon industry. His son Bud Hillerich moved into baseball bats. And billets is named after that cylindrical piece of wood that we get in the factory before shaping them into a bat.”

Batter Up! Louisville Slugger Says It’s Bourbon Time.

Barrels and Billets offers a unique experience that lets visitors create their own custom blend of bourbon.

“We’re going to give you six different wood finish bourbons that you can blend together to create your own custom blend. At the end of it you’ll have the option to take that recipe and have it bottled in our bonded room right there.”

“You walk in, you do the experience you say: ‘i like this’, you’re going to walk out the door with that bottle.”

“This is Louisville’s only custom bourbon experience,” said Soliday.

Soliday concluded, “To offer our guests people visiting Louisville, our locals, another option is really exciting for us as a company and as a city.”

The Barrels and Billets experience will include a bourbon cocktail flight enabling visitors to taste a wide variety of blends and a survey of 13 questions to help newer bourbon enthusiasts identify their personalized palette.

According to WLKY CBS, “Barrels and Billets offers six different wood-finished bourbons that customers can blend however they would like. The custom experience starts with taste-testing each of the six bourbons, which include a 200 Year Oak, European Oak, Cherry Wood, Maple Wood, and Smoked Oak.”

“If they want something sweeter, they’re going to be able to do that. If they want something that’s more oaky, they’re going to be able to do that. If they want something that has a little bit more of that smoke characteristic, they’re certainly going to be able to do that,” said Soliday

The Bourbon experience will cost visitors $35 per person, and custom blend 750ml bottles of bourbon will be $45.