The new tableside cocktail experience at Jim Beam Urban Stillhouse is a lot fun. | Photo courtesy of Jim Beam

It’s pretty cool that Kentucky distilleries now can make cocktails on premise. But at the Jim Beam Urban Stillhouse on Fourth Street Live!, visitors can get in on the ice-and-liquor-shaking action with a new interactive cocktail making experience.

Last week, several reporters and other guests gathered at the Urban Stillhouse to go through the experience ourselves with instructors Bobby Gleason and Beth Burrows. With all the bourbon, flavor amendments and bar tools on hand, the pair led us to make two shaken drinks that are easily duplicable at home.

Bobby Gleason, master mixologist for Beam Brands, walked guests through the cocktail making experience. | Photo courtesy of Jim Beam
Bobby Gleason, master mixologist for Beam Brands, walked guests through the cocktail making experience. | Photo courtesy of Jim Beam

The point, of course, is to make the Stillhouse experience more interactive, and to boost drinkers’ confidence in cocktail making. Oh, and to get more people using Beam spirits at home, of course.

Sound interesting? The cocktail classes happen seven times each day, on the hour every hour. Tickets for the experience cost $18 and are, of course, for those 21 and older. (To prime your palate, do the $5 Taste of History, which lets you select a few Beam whiskeys to taste straight.) Beam expects the experience to be popular with visitors on the Urban Bourbon Trail, as well as groups just looking for a fun way to spend about 45 minutes.

I know my reporter peers and I had fun, so give it a shot.

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Steve Coomes is a restaurant veteran turned award-winning food, spirits and travel writer. In his 25-year career, he has edited and written for multiple national trade and consumer publications including Nation's Restaurant News and Southern Living. He is a feature writer for Edible Louisville & The Bluegrass, Whisky Magazine, WhiskeyWash.com and The Bourbon Review. The author of two books, "Country Ham: A Southern Tradition of Hogs, Salt & Smoke," and the "Home Distiller's Guide to Spirits," he also serves as a ghostwriter for multiple clients.