Bardstown

The Bar at Willett

· Bardstown · Gourmet Small Plates

The Wild Card

The Bar at Willett earns its Wild Card badge because nobody walks into a Kentucky distillery expecting a Loire-focused wine list over gourmet small plates — and the fact that it might exist here is worth investigating in person. We don't have enough sourced detail to tell you exactly what to order, but if you find yourself at Willett and the bourbon's already flowing, ask about the wine. You might be pleasantly surprised, and that's worth something.

Buffalo Wild Wings

· Bardstown · Sports bar

The Lazy List

If you're in Bardstown and craving wings, Buffalo Wild Wings will do the job. If you're planning to drink wine with those wings, our advice is simple: don't. The beer list is longer, the staff knows it better, and your money goes further. Come for the sports, stay for the lager.

Bottle & Bond Lounge

Heaven Hill · Bardstown · Lounge

The Lazy List

If you're at Bardstown Bourbon Company, drink bourbon — the wine list here is not the reason you came and it won't give you a reason to revisit. The pricing is fair and the pours are inoffensive, but this is a lounge that's made its priorities abundantly clear.

The Kitchen Table at James B. Beam Distilling Co.

Beam Distillery Area · Bardstown · Contemporary Southern / Bourbon-Inspired American

The Wild Card

The Kitchen Table is first and foremost a bourbon experience, and the wine list knows its place in that pecking order. If you're on the Bourbon Trail with a wine lover in tow, this is a perfectly acceptable landing spot — just temper expectations, lean toward the Pinot, and let them order the whiskey flights.

Kitchen & Bar at Bardstown Bourbon Company

East Bardstown / Parkway Drive · Bardstown · New American / Distillery Restaurant

The Reliable

The wine list at BBC Kitchen & Bar does exactly enough to keep non-bourbon drinkers comfortable, and not much else. Send your wine-curious friends here for the experience, but tell them to start with the bourbon.

The Rickhouse Restaurant & Lounge

Downtown / Spalding Hall · Bardstown · Steakhouse / American

The Reliable

The Rickhouse is a perfectly competent steakhouse wine list doing exactly what a steakhouse wine list in bourbon country is supposed to do — familiar names, heavy pours, and enough bottles to keep the table happy. Just go in knowing you're paying for the atmosphere and the ambiance of that historic cellar as much as what's in the glass.