The Kentucky Hug: Eddie Fieldhouse’s Vision for Bourbon Tourism
photos by Reed Sampley
Read about how this rising CEO’s booking platform revolutionizes the Bourbon Trail, paving the way for inclusive experiences in Kentucky.
Eddie Fieldhouse dunks a tea bag into hot water as he sits across from me in a Louisville coffee house. We’re both a bit windswept and wet from the rain, and he settles into our warm corner as we begin to talk bourbon.
“Oh, God,” he stammered when asked his favorite bourbon. Of course, he couldn’t easily pick one. “It depends on what I’m doing and who I’m with. One of the ones that stands out to me right now is Dark Arts. Any of that lineup of products.” His qualifications? Eddie is the co-founder and CEO of Kentucky Hug, a centralized booking platform for bourbon experiences. Whether it be distillery tours or tastings, Eddie knows his bourbon.
“So, there’s two audiences for the Kentucky Hug: there’s the distillery and the people who want to go visit the distillery.” He explains that the average bourbon tourist is spending six to eight hours sifting through around a hundred distillery options on Google. That’s just for tours – it doesn’t include tastings or events (“any of the cool stuff that goes in and around bourbon”).
Previously, if users couldn’t afford to spend eight hours researching their Bourbon Trail excursion, their next best option was to pay a tour company hundreds – or even thousands – of dollars to efficiently book and arrange the itinerary. The average tourist, however, doesn’t have the time or money for these avenues.
Enter The Kentucky Hug: all users need to do is put in the dates they’re traveling, and how many are in their party. Then, once they add their chosen experiences to their cart, The Kentucky Hug will build their trip for them at a small booking fee. “And you’re not five clicks-deep on twenty-five different websites on twenty-five different tabs.”
Eddie’s inspiration for the Kentucky Hug came from his frustration with distilleries’ old-fashioned bookkeeping. Between lost reservations, unanswered phones, and outdated information, bourbon’s infrastructure wasn’t able to keep up with its growth, but the Kentucky Hug streamlines this process and allows the average bourbon enthusiast – the one without eight hours to kill – the opportunity to experience the pulse of American history for themselves.
He describes tourists running around downtown Bardstown trying to make it to their next reservation – running past all of the local, family-owned businesses that support this industry, the culture-keepers of this tradition.
“Bourbon is America’s only native spirit. It should be as accessible as any museum on the National Mall in D.C., and yet it’s not.” That is the heart of The Kentucky Hug: centering the average bourbon consumer in the conversation.
The mom-and-pop businesses, the person on the factory line dipping the bottle – they’re all just as important as the master distiller. “Those people both have stories going multiple generations back within the distilling industry. Both are valid and both are just as interesting when you go back to L.A. and tell someone about your trip here.”
Eddie’s vision extends further than just commercial tourism, because it’s “way beyond just bourbon because bourbon is context – it’s community.” He’s seen firsthand how increased access to tourism in our rural communities of Kentucky help the people in those towns grow, learn, and combat isolationism.
Ten years ago, Eddie was prepared to lead his first tour for a group of eight guests from California.
“I was so excited, I mean, I hadn’t slept for days. I had practiced all this history and memorized everything.” That is, until he experienced what many queer people have before: the woman who was charged with letting tour groups into the distillery, named Julie, refused to look him in the eye, and continued to give him dirty looks. Eventually, to his embarrassment, Eddie and the guests who hired him were asked to leave the property. His queerness was, apparently, making the staff uncomfortable.
Only two years later, Julie is giving her spiel to Eddie’s tour group and asks for everyone’s preferred pronouns. The rest of the visit went off without a hitch. She had no Diversity Equity and Inclusion training, no managerial intervention – she simply had access and exposure, and through that, learned how to engage with people outside of her community. “What was beautiful about it was that through her just engaging with people who were different from her, she learned and she changed her perspective.”
To a lot of people, bourbon is seen as a boys’ club. It feels overwhelmingly white, cisgendered, straight, and unwelcoming. Eddie argues that this is, in part, because of the industry’s lack of infrastructure and access – which is what Eddie is providing through The Kentucky Hug – and the people in the bourbon industry aren’t as immutable as we might think.
“Everyone has the opportunity to change. Nothing is permanent. If we can make small towns more accessible in a way that’s safe for both parties – that gives both parties autonomy – the world’s guaranteed to be a better place. I’ve seen it get better.”
At the end of the day, bourbon is much more than just a drink; it’s Kentucky’s legacy. “Generational histories change over time. It’s the story of people – a story of community. I want people to see that, and I feel like if we had a way of looking at it that wasn’t so clouded with advertising, we’d be able to touch it easier.” By making these experiences accessible, Eddie is sharing the traditions of ordinary Kentuckians.
It’s not often that you come across someone with a vision as strong and clear as Eddie Fieldhouse. Fed up with old-fashioned infrastructure and the high barrier to entry, he set out to do what no one else could do, because only a Kaintuck could do it. Streamlining the bourbon industry is no small undertaking. He is a trailblazer, put simply – a keeper of bourbon tradition, and an impressive businessman.
Before we ran back out into the rain, he gave me his ideal bourbon itinerary for a weekend:
Friday arrival
– Staying in NULU or Germantown, depending on the group.
Saturday
– 9AM: Eat breakfast (he couldn’t stress this enough) at Wiltshire Pantry, Louisville, KY
– 11AM: Beam Made Bourbon Distillery Tour & Tasting at the Jim Beam Distilling Co., Clermont, KY
– 1PM: lunch reservation at The Bar at Willett, Bardstown, KY
– 3:30PM: Old Forester Tour, Louisville, KY
– 5PM: Angel’s Envy Whiskey Connoisseur Tasting, Louisville, KY
– 7:30PM: dinner reservation at Enso, Louisville, KY
– Nightcap at Hilltop Tavern
Sunday
– Leo Moo Drag Brunch
– 1:30PM: Evan Williams Traditional Tour & Tasting, Louisville, KY
– 3:30PM: The Copper & Kings Experience – rooftop cocktails to follow tour, Louisville, KY
– 7:00PM: dinner reservation at Decade, Louisville, KY
– Nightcap at Play Louisville
