Four Roses Distillery LLC

Four Roses runs ten distinct bourbon recipes through a single distillery in Lawrenceburg — two mashbills and five proprietary yeast strains, each combination aged separately, each carrying its own four-letter code (OBSV, OESQ, and so on). That's not marketing copy. It's the production reality and the reason a Single Barrel from this distillery can taste like a different category than the Small Batch on the same shelf. Master Distiller Brent Elliott has held the role since 2015, succeeding the much-mythologized Jim Rutledge. Elliott — University of Kentucky chemistry degree, ten years working under Rutledge before the promotion — was named Whisky Magazine's Master Distiller/Blender of the Year and runs the blending decisions on every annual Limited Edition.

The distillery itself is the other story. Built in 1910 in Spanish-Mission style — cream stucco, red-tile roofline, arched doorways — it's registered on the National Register of Historic Places as "Old Prentice Distillery" and looks like nothing else in Kentucky bourbon country. Local lore holds it was meant to evoke a California mission. The result is the only major bourbon distillery in the state where the first photo you take looks more like Santa Barbara than Bardstown.

The visit

The Lawrenceburg distillery — 1224 Bonds Mill Road — is the production site and the visitor center. Hours are Mon and Wed-Sat 9-4, Sun 12-4 (closed Tuesday). The Standard Distillery Tour runs 60-75 minutes and includes three tastings; pricing through the distillery is modest by Kentucky standards (around $20-$25 last verified). For more depth, the Sensory Tasting Experience runs 45 minutes and dives into mashbill and yeast differentiation — the closest thing to a recipe-by-recipe deep dive most public tours offer. There's a separate facility at Cox's Creek (between the Lawrenceburg distillery and Bardstown) where bottling and a portion of aging happens; it also runs tours Wed-Sun 9-4.

TripAdvisor sits Four Roses at 4.6 stars across 1,360 reviews. A March 2026 visitor flagged guide Marty by name as "fantastic" and praised the headset-equipped tours that let groups hear over distillery noise. A December 2025 review called the new gift shop and welcome center "beautiful." The pattern in recent reviews: people come for the architecture, leave talking about the tour guides. Book ahead in season.

Bottles worth knowing

• Four Roses Bourbon ("Yellow Label") — the entry-level small batch, blends all ten recipes. Around $25. The best $25 bourbon argument in Kentucky if you don't count Buffalo Trace.
• Four Roses Small Batch Select — Elliott's 2019 addition, six specific recipes, non-chill-filtered, 104 proof. Around $60.
• Four Roses Single Barrel — OBSV recipe (one of the ten), 100 proof, age-stated 7-9 years on most fills. The category benchmark single barrel.
• Limited Edition Small Batch — annual barrel-strength release, allocated, $200+ MSRP, scored 92+ for most of the past decade.
• Private Selection Single Barrels — retailers can pick from any of the ten recipes; experienced shops list which recipe each barrel is. The closest a bourbon brand gets to letting customers chase specific yeasts.

Bottom line

Four Roses is the distillery to visit when you want to understand why recipe matters in bourbon — and the standard tour delivers it cleanly because they have ten recipes to talk about, not one. The architecture alone justifies the stop. The juice — every tier from Yellow Label to the annual Limited Edition — represents consistent value relative to peers. If you're putting together a Kentucky Bourbon Trail itinerary, Four Roses pairs efficiently with Wild Turkey in the same town and Buffalo Trace twenty minutes north in Frankfort.