Bourbon Trail Sees Record-Breaking Tourism Numbers

A pop quiz for you tonight: what’s brown, kept from the public eye for years and still manages to draw hundreds of thousands of people to Kentucky each year? The answer is bourbon.

"As we kind of just look around in here,” said tour guide Tyler Horn, as the last tour of the evening Thursday followed him into a warehouse at Town Branch.

Roughly 725,000 pairs of feet marched through the Kentucky Bourbon Trail in 2014. Distilling professionals said bourbon has Kentucky’s economy bubbling. It’s the most foot traffic the trail has ever seen.

"I don’t usually like regular beer and this actually was something I think I would drink often,” said Andrea Shank.

It’s Town Branch that drew the interest of the bride-to-be and her family from Oregon who said this won’t be their last stop.

"I would come back and hit a few more,” chimed in a family member.

While the focus is beer and spirits, Tyler Horn explains how tourists generate revenue as well.

"This be, kind of the medium to let consumers interact with all of our brands, whether it be our barrel aged beers, our Kentucky Ale line of beers or the whiskeys produced in our Town Branch distillery,” said Horn.

The Kentucky Distillers’ Association said some distilleries are up 200% in attendance over the last five years.

"It’s exciting because Kentucky’s economy is really driven by spirit production,” said Horn.

If the trail continues to draw tourists at its current pace, estimates from the KDA place the number at more than one million per year by 2018.