Look, I’m going to be blunt here because someone needs to say it: if you attended the 2025 Kentucky Bourbon Festival and spent three hours standing in line to buy a bottle of bourbon, you fundamentally misunderstood what you paid for.
I’ve been attending this festival since 2021—first as a general admission attendee, then as a VIP, and for the last few years as media. I’ve seen this thing from every angle, and I’ve watched it devolve from a genuine bourbon appreciation event into something that resembles Black Friday at a fucking Best Buy. And it’s not the festival’s fault. It’s ours.
What You Actually Paid For
Here’s what a $190-$600 ticket to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival gets you: access to over 200 bourbon expressions from 65 distilleries. You get to meet master distillers. You get to taste bottles that cost over a thousand dollars—Very Old St. Nick was being poured on-site, just included in your admission. You get to discover craft distilleries like Potter Jane, who was showing their new make that won’t be available for years. Craig Beam—yes, that Beam family—debuted his first bourbon from Jackson Purchase Distillery. Dark Arts had their 16-year Buffalo Trace selection available to taste.
But instead of experiencing any of that, thousands of people woke up at 5 a.m., stood in line for hours, and then sprinted across a grass field when the gates opened to stand in another line for three more hours to buy a bottle of Heaven Hill’s latest limited edition.
You paid hundreds of dollars to be a trophy hunter in a high-fence operation, and then you complained about it on social media.
The Problem Isn’t the Festival
Almost every piece of content generated about this year’s festival mentions the same things: long lines, bottle access issues, chaos at the gates. And yeah, those things happened. But here’s the thing—the bottle sales are supposed to be incidental. This isn’t a bottle-hunting event. It’s an access event.
The Kentucky Bourbon Festival wasn’t created as a competition to see who could acquire the most allocated bottles. Hell, the first couple of years you couldn’t even buy bottles at the event. It was about creating an immersive bourbon experience for people who wanted to learn, taste, and explore. Not just acquire and hoard.
Somewhere between 2021 and 2025, we lost the plot. Bourbon culture has an identity crisis, and it’s showing up in ugly ways at events like this.
What You Missed While Standing in Line
While you were complaining with your buddies about how long the bottle line was taking, here’s what was happening:
Dan Callaway from Barstown Bourbon Company was explaining their first-ever double-barreled Hungarian Oak release. Whiskey House—one of the most technologically advanced distilleries in Kentucky—was educating people about the growing importance of contract distilling. Potter Jane was giving people a taste of new make that represents what could be one of the most interesting brands in a few years.
There were 200+ expressions to taste. If you walked into a bar and tried to drink through even ten of those, you’d spend what you spent on your ticket. And there’s still 190 more to go.
But sure, stand in line for three hours for a bottle that’s going to have the same 24 ounces as every other bottle, and that you’ll forget about when next year’s limited edition drops.
The Real Value Proposition
I get it—not everyone wants to geek out over craft distilleries or have deep conversations with master distillers. Some people just want their allocated bottles. Fine. But if that’s your goal, maybe the Kentucky Bourbon Festival isn’t for you. Because the actual value of this event is in the things you can’t replicate anywhere else.
Want to know what makes this festival worth it? It’s about access and community. It’s about tasting things you’ve never seen before. It’s about meeting people who share your passion for bourbon. It’s about learning something new from someone who’s spent their entire career perfecting a craft.
I stayed with a group of people I met through the internet—folks from Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, South Carolina. We cooked meals together, we had our own tastings at night, we went to offsite events together. That’s what bourbon is supposed to be about. It’s a communal spirit. It brings people together who otherwise would never be in the same room.
But you don’t get that experience standing in a bottle line for three hours, pissed off that the person in front of you got the last one.
My Hot Take: Stop Selling Limited Editions
Here’s my solution, and it’s going to be controversial: Kentucky Bourbon Festival should eliminate all on-site sales of limited edition releases. Not single barrels—those are fine. Not standard releases from craft distilleries who desperately need that direct-to-consumer revenue. But the Heaven Hill 21-years, the ultra-allocated trophy bottles that create operational chaos and attendee frustration? Get rid of them.
Force people to remember what this festival is actually for. It’s for drinking bourbon, not hoarding it.
Because here’s the dirty little secret: there are reports—unsubstantiated from my perspective, but reports nonetheless—of people darting in as VIPs, grabbing multiple limited editions, and reselling them in the parking lot to people walking into the event. That’s illegal. That’s unsafe. And that’s what happens when you turn an appreciation event into a bottle-hunting competition.
A Message to Content Creators
And to my fellow social media people: we have a responsibility here. A lot of us were given free access to this event. We got media passes, we got food, we got opportunities that regular attendees paid hundreds of dollars for. And what did most of the biggest accounts do with that access?
They made the same damn video everyone else made: “Long lines! Bottle chaos! Here’s my haul!”
Who cares? In six months, nobody’s going to give a shit about those bottles. But you know what would have been valuable? Deep dives on craft distilleries. Conversations with master distillers about their techniques. Educational content about what makes this event special. Comparisons of VIP versus general admission value. Literally anything other than another bottle-hunting strategy guide.
Stop making content that feeds the algorithm and start making content that serves the community. Because right now, you’re contributing to the problem.
If You’re Thinking About Going in 2026
Here’s my advice: go to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival with the right expectations. Pick one “must-do” thing per day—whether that’s standing in a bottle line or tasting a specific expression. Then spend the rest of your time exploring. Talk to distillers. Try something you’ve never heard of. Meet people. Have fun.
If you go expecting to leave with a trunk full of allocated bottles, you’re going to have a bad time. But if you go expecting unprecedented access to bourbon culture at its peak, you’re going to have an incredible experience.
The value is still there. The festival is still worth attending. You just have to show up for the right reasons.
And for the love of God, stop running across grass fields like you’re storming the beaches at Normandy. It’s bourbon. It’s supposed to be fun.
Listen to the full episode for more thoughts on the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, bourbon culture, and why we need to get our priorities straight. Find me on Instagram and TikTok @EmbellishPod, or visit www.embellishpod.com.