Skip the Long Drive: Fly Private to Kentucky’s Bourbon Trail

There are vacations you take because you want to get somewhere, and then there are trips where getting from place to place is half the experience. Kentucky’s Bourbon Trail is definitely the latter.

The distilleries that made Kentucky bourbon famous aren’t all lined up neatly in downtown Louisville. They’re scattered across rolling countryside, through small towns and around places like Bardstown, Frankfort, Versailles and Lawrenceburg. That geography is part of what makes a Bourbon Trail trip so much fun. It’s also what can make getting there commercially surprisingly inconvenient.

At Capital Air Express, this is exactly the kind of trip we love.

Instead of building your weekend around airline schedules and major airports, we can fly you directly into one of Kentucky’s smaller regional airports, putting you much closer to the distilleries, hotels and experiences you actually came to enjoy.

The Bourbon Trail Isn’t Really One Trail

If you’ve never been, it’s easy to imagine the Kentucky Bourbon Trail as a single road you follow from distillery to distillery. In reality, Kentucky bourbon country covers a fairly large area, and some of its most famous names are separated by an hour or more of driving.

That means the best Bourbon Trail weekends usually start with a little strategy.

Louisville makes sense if your plans center around the city and the distilleries along Whiskey Row. Lexington is a great jumping-off point for bourbon country to the east. Bardstown puts you in the heart of one of Kentucky’s most historic bourbon-producing regions. Frankfort and the surrounding area open up another collection of legendary distilleries.

Flying private gives us considerably more flexibility in deciding where your trip should actually begin.

Rather than automatically sending you through the nearest major commercial airport, we can look at your itinerary and determine which airport makes the most sense for where you’re staying and which distilleries you plan to visit.

Sometimes shaving an hour off the drive after you land is worth far more than shaving a few minutes off the flight.

Make Friday Afternoon Part of the Trip

The Bourbon Trail is particularly good for a long weekend, but long weekends only work when you don’t lose half of Friday and half of Sunday getting there and back.

Imagine leaving work on a Friday afternoon, meeting your group at your local airport and heading north without the usual airport routine. No drive into Atlanta. No parking deck. No TSA line. No arriving two hours early. No connection through another city because the airline schedule doesn’t happen to match yours.

You board, you fly, and a few hours later you’re in Kentucky.

That can mean checking into your hotel and making your dinner reservation Friday night instead of spending the evening traveling. Saturday and Sunday can be devoted to distillery tours, tastings, restaurants and exploring bourbon country. When it’s time to come home, the airplane works around your schedule instead of the other way around.

For a trip that might only last two or three nights, those saved hours are a significant part of the vacation.

Build the Weekend Around the Bourbon You Actually Want to Drink

One of the best things about a Bourbon Trail trip is that no two itineraries have to look alike.

Maybe your group wants the iconic names and beautiful properties. Maybe you’re hunting for harder-to-find bottles and smaller producers. Maybe half the group loves bourbon and the other half is mostly there for the food, scenery and a very nice hotel.

All of those trips can work.

You might build a weekend around Bardstown and visit some of the historic names that helped make the region synonymous with bourbon. You could stay closer to Lexington and combine distillery visits with horse country. You could spend time in Louisville, where bourbon bars, restaurants and urban distillery experiences make it possible to enjoy the spirit without spending the entire weekend in a car.

Or you can combine regions.

That flexibility is one of the reasons we recommend deciding what you really want to experience before choosing your airport. With private charter, the airport doesn’t have to dictate the vacation.

The vacation can dictate the airport.

This Is a Great Trip for a Small Group

Bourbon country is even better with friends.

A birthday weekend, guys’ trip, girls’ trip, couples’ getaway or simply an excuse for a few friends to disappear for a weekend all work beautifully here. And when several people are traveling together, private charter becomes more than just a convenient way to get there.

The trip starts when you get on the airplane.

There’s no splitting up at security, worrying about who got upgraded, hoping everyone’s bags arrive or trying to coordinate rental cars after landing. Everyone leaves together, everyone arrives together, and the weekend begins before you ever touch down in Kentucky.

Just remember one important detail when you start buying bottles: airplanes have weight limits too.

We fully support bringing home your favorite Kentucky souvenirs. We just appreciate knowing how ambitious your shopping plans are before the return flight.

Fall May Be the Perfect Time to Go

Kentucky is beautiful throughout the year, but bourbon country feels particularly appropriate in the fall.

Cooler temperatures, changing leaves, horse farms, historic distilleries and a glass of bourbon at the end of the day make September, October and November especially appealing months for a visit.

That also means fall weekends can become popular quickly.

Distillery tours—particularly at some of the best-known properties—often require advance reservations, so this is not necessarily a trip we recommend planning at the very last minute. Once you have your group together, start looking at the distilleries you want to visit, reserve your tours and talk to us about the flight.

We can help you determine which airport makes the most sense based on the itinerary you’re building.

The Bourbon Trail Is Closer Than It Looks

On a map, Kentucky bourbon country might seem just far enough away to save for a longer vacation. Commercially, it can sometimes feel that way too.

Private charter changes the math.

When you can leave from an airport close to home, fly directly into a smaller airport near the part of Kentucky you actually want to visit and return on your own schedule, the Bourbon Trail becomes a very manageable weekend getaway.

So gather a few friends. Pick the distilleries you’ve always wanted to visit. Make the dinner reservations. Leave a little extra room in the luggage for the bottles you’ll inevitably bring home.

We’ll handle the flying.

And unlike the bourbon, your trip doesn’t need years to become a good idea.