About | Unfiltered Ky Tours

About Unfiltered KY Tours

Your trusted guides to the bourbon trail

At Unfiltered KY Tours, we’re simply a group of folks from the bourbon industry who love sharing our piece of American culture with the rest of the world. Our team is composed of employees, students, and stewards of our great industry, and we believe our love for bourbon sets us apart from other tour companies.

Our company is a true small business. We may not have the "prestige" of some of the big names, but we make up for it in value, hospitality, and hard work. In reality, we have to work harder for our clients than others, and we're glad to offer the same service for less.

We are entirely devoted to making our client’s time on the bourbon trail as safe, convenient, and effortless as we possibly can. We’re your trusted partners to the bourbon trail!

Who We Are

Industry folk

A requirement to work with Unfiltered KY Tours is that you spent time working in the bourbon or spirits industry prior to running tours. Our team comes from a variety of distilleries, bourbon bars, bottle shops, tour companies and more!

Big on community involvement

While we aren’t certificate-chasers, we like to stay involved in the community as members of our local tourism groups. Individually, our team members belong to a number of organizations and have a wide range of certificates, from Women in Whiskey, various BAs, Kentucky Derby Ambassadors, Bourbon Stewards, Society members, and more! We also belong to a variety of local and national bourbon clubs.

Friends & family

We were essentially founded by a team of decades-old friends who wanted to share our passions for whiskey with the world. There is a strong sense of friendship, trust, support, and cooperation within our business. And it’s a lot more important than you’d think!

Students of whiskey

We spend countless hours attending whiskey talks, listening to podcasts, visiting distilleries, publishing articles, and researching local history. We try to visit every distillery in our service region, not just once, but every year as things change. We haven’t lost our curiosity about whiskey and are learning more every day!

Meet Our Owner

Hey there! I’m Chuck, the owner/operator of Unfiltered KY Tours. I grew up here in the Kentuckiana region with bourbon in my backyard. Growing up, my family was a Maker’s Mark family. I remember being on the ambassadors’ list long before what it was today. They would send us items such as bottle sweaters, bourbon ball makers, and ice cube trays around Christmas time - It was fun getting those as a kid and trying to figure out what they were used for. In short, whiskey has always been around in my world.

I worked in hospitality on-and-off from the time I was 15 until just recently. I attended the University of Louisville Business School on student loans and scholarships and have been working in this region ever since. Me and my roommates drank the cheap stuff in college, but I eventually got into better whiskey shortly after graduating. Not long after, I got involved with some local bourbon clubs and started collecting bourbon. It wasn’t long before I set my eyes on the industry.

Around the time of covid, I got a gig with a Diageo subsidiary doing promo and marketing work for some of their whiskey brands. And not long after that, I got hired by a local bourbon tour company where I fell in love with the job. And I was very burnt out from doing office and marketing work. And long-story short, I started my first business, Unfiltered KY Tours.

When starting Unfiltered KY Tours, I was really excited to get to start doing bourbon tours for a living. After figuring out the legal stuff, I put all of my savings into our first vehicles and just sort of went for it. One thing that pushed me into figuring this stuff out is, I had a few lifelong friends I really wanted to get involved in the business and share my favorite job with. And it means a lot that I can work alongside them.

Now in 2025, my company is just a few years old. I’m still putting everything I have into growing our business. I touch every single booking that comes through our door. I drive all of the longer tours I should probably say no to to make sure our employees can get home to their families by supper. I’ll be doing this for years to come, until I’ve decided someone can take the helm for me.. or until something else in the bourbon industry calls me!

Thanks for being here and for your interest in our small business. We couldn’t be here without you. And if not on a tour, I hope to see you on the bourbon trail someday!

- Chuck (Owner/Operator)

Raising a glass to to the best man I knew

I like to think that my Grandfather, Charley Reisert, was the source of my entrepreneurial spirit. He was also the primary source of my curiosity that led me to having bourbon as a hobby. He was the first person to talk bourbon with me, and not about how it makes you feel... About the craftsmanship, how it's made… what makes it so special.

He was the sort of patron-saint of our family. When my dad passed away and my mom became a single mother, he stepped in to help any way he could - the same way he helped everyone in his reach. A one-time humanitarian of the year in the state of Indiana, a museum-curator, Indiana real-estate hall of famer, board member of his local library, Clark County youth shelter, the rotary club, countless other clubs and awards… he had such a passion for everything he did.

My Grandpa would take Wednesdays off work in the summer to take me and my brother to all of the local attractions while we were out of school. Spring Mill, Locust Grove, the Gus Grisham memorial, everything within a few hours of Louisville that was kid-friendly and had local history behind it. I often think of these memories when I’m taking clients out to stops along the bourbon trail, with his passion for history and culture living through me.

I do wish that he could see me following his footsteps of becoming a business owner. And that I could take him out to all the distilleries the way he took me to his favorite places as a kid. But I know he’s proud of me up there. And sorry Grandude, I would take our clients out in Cadillacs the way you did yours, but Fords are more reliable. Maybe one day..

Thanks for being an example of what a great man is and helping to get me on this path. Forever raising a glass of Maker’s for you.

- In memory of Charley Reisert (1941-2011)