Hartfield Company Distillery - Paris

Close experience with work of craft distillery. To learn a lot. Very pleasant tasting. Building has interesting history and 2 cats on each floor. Paris city centre, old and picturesque

If you are near Paris Kentucky, go here! We've visited lots of distilleries, and in our humble opinion, they put out the BEST bourbon. We did the tour last year, had a great time, and returned this year with my son and daughter in law. Will return next year from NC just to go here and restock. Thank you Rachel, we had fun doing the tasting with you!

Loved the atmosphere here! The gentleman doing the tasting was very knowledgeable and nice. He had good stories about the making of the various spirits they serve. If you want to try Pre- Prohibition style bourbon vs. traditional bourbon we all know and love...this is the place to do it. The grains used speak for themselves! We went home with a bottle of bourbon and rum.

I did their Day as a Distiller tour yesterday. Highly recommended. I 'd done two prior bourbon tours which was good preparation for this 4 5 hour experience, as was home brewing beer, to understand the process. I met the owner, Jeremy, and worked with Tyler in the distillery. I gather I was fortunate that day as I was able to participate in almost every process: making the mash, piping it down to the fermenters and pitching the yeast, watching them measure the final proof of a fresh batch, and sampling the aging whiskey. (That happened first thing, 10:30 am, so I suggest a hearty breakfast to buffer the alcohol! . I spent the most time labeling bottles and putting them in the pallet. I labeled well over 100 on the machine. There were a lot of trips up down stairs between mashing and fermenters. I poured a partial bag of malted wheat but Tyler spared me the 50 lbs bags. As the mash bins emptied I helped stir them with a paddle to keep the grain suspended but the hose still clogged twice. You will make a productive contribution to the effort. It wasn 't physically demanding even considering I 'll turn 69 next week. Didn 't get dirty, just some wheat dust that brushed off. I 'd lucked into cool weather otherwise it might have been unpleasantly warm around those 180F mash bins. I was able to taste from the mash, the fermenter, from the still, barrels aged only 3 4 months, and fully aged. The mash was sweet, fermenter a bit sour (of course , the freshly distilled white malted wheat whiskey had a surprising amount of flavor having aged maybe 10 minutes in stainless steel, with the final aged product excellent. Definitely among the best I 've tried: as points of reference, I 've been of legal age for 50 years; favorites include High West, Old Granddad (my every day bourbon , Bulliet, Noah 's Mill, and for Scotch, The Macallan. I lean heavily towards rye and high rye mash billed bourbons. Since moving to Kentucky last year, I 'm trying as many as possible starting with the most local to Lexington. Of their two cats, Rye was friendly while Barley kept his distance. Corn had the habit of jumping on guests ' heads so is now WFH. Lunch is on your own. Lil 's Cafe is walking distance and good; wish I 'd seen the tomato pie and assorted quiche on my way in! The complete product tasting is at the end. They have a humidor, so a cigar would nicely occupy the time metabolizing the alcohol.

Do yourself a favor and don’t get the bourbon from batch 69. Literally all you can smell is GREEN corn husk…not the corn itself. They tried to tell me that is what they were looking for in the flavor profile and it was indicative of “pre-prohibition” era bourbon. It’s not! J. Peppers is much better.Anything else from here is ok.