52 Best Sights in USA

Opened in fall of 2022 in a stylish 33,000-square-foot building, this new hometown headquarters of the spirit that helped turn Portland into a craft distilling mecca offers 30-minute tours (by reservation only) of the state-of-the-art production areas, a tasting of both the gin and a cocktail in which it's used, and even a peek inside the office of actor and co-owner Ryan Reynolds.

Heirloom-corn bourbon and the flagship malted rye are the big sellers at the distillery that Michael and Lorraine Barber and the couple’s partner Aaron Lee started in 2017. The spirits are mashed, fermented, produced, distilled, and aged from "grain to glass" inside the company's 1910 redbrick storefront using traditional methods and uncomputerized equipment. White rum, aged rum, Gravenstein apple brandy, grappa, lambanóg (a traditional Filipino spirit distilled from palm sugar), absinthe blanche, and other spirits are handcrafted in smaller batches. Amid the aromatic barrels, guests sample flights, Lorraine's finely honed cocktails, wine (the Barbers own a winery), or craft beers.

On the aptly named Gin Lane, Vermont's top distillery crafts award-winning spirits from raw honey. Stop in for a tasting and tour, but be sure to hang around for a classic Bee's Knees or G&T; Barr Hill's cocktail program was a finalist in the 2024 James Beard Awards' Outstanding Bar category, and rightfully so. 

The sweet scent of the country's premier craft gin permeates the Berkshires' first legal distillery since Prohibition. The retail store, open every afternoon, sells Greylock Gin, a multiple gold-medal winner, and Ethereal Gin, whose ingredients are reimagined every season, among other spirits. Take a self-guided distillery tour and try a complimentary tasting. During the summer, there's live music in the outdoor pavilion where you can sip on craft cocktails. 

A highlight of Marathon Village is Corsair, a microdistillery and brewpub offering eclectic locally made spirits, beer, and pizza. Visitors can tour the facility, which is housed in a century-old automobile factory, and try full- and sample-size offerings of Corsair spirits in the distillery's taproom. Tours are offered every day but Tuesday and last about 30 minutes.

This critically acclaimed standout among the state's fast-growing crop of artisan distilleries specializes in spirits crafted from local ingredients, including single-barrel bourbon produced with local corn and rye, and a crisp vodka made from Yakima Valley grapes and infused with rhubarb. Choose from sampler flights or try Distallarium's spirits mixed into a classic cocktail. The kitchen turns out some of the tastiest bar bites around—the lobster puffs and white cheddar nachos are highly addictive. 

This modern cidery on the west side of town honors the prolific orchards that have thrived in and around Torrey and Capitol Reef since pioneers began settling here in the late 19th century. And the name honors Etta Place, the storied companion of the Sundance Kid, who holed up with the notorious, though charming, outlaw at his hideout with Butch Cassidy near Torrey. Since planting its first 50 trees in 2012, this boutique cider operation has developed a critical following for its clean and crisp dry, off-dry, and gingered hard ciders. One-hour tours provide an interesting look at the cider-making process and include a tasting; it's recommended that you book online, at least a couple of hours before you arrive. The on-site bottle shop also sells cheeses, meats, and other foods to snack on while you sip.

The Hanson family makes grape-based organic vodkas, one traditional, the rest infused with cucumbers, ginger, mandarin oranges, Meyer lemons, or habanero and other chili peppers. A surprise to many visitors, the Hansons make a blended white wine before distilling it into vodka. The family pours its vodkas and a Japanese-style single-malt whisky in an industrial-looking tasting room heavy on the steel, with wood reclaimed from Deep South smokehouses adding a rustic note. In good weather, some sessions take place on a small pond's landscaped shore.

This distillery decorated with old tools and other memorabilia from the building's previous life as a hardware store offers informative tastings and, by appointment, entertaining tours. For a small operation, Hardware has developed a big following for its fruit-and-honey Bee's Knees liqueurs (the fig variety is a standout) as well as spicy Cardamom Aquavit and herbal-accented Dutch genever–style small-batch gin. A couple of doors down, the beer garden at Potlach Brewing is a nice place to sample locales ales, including some aged in Hardware Distillery whiskey barrels.

This quaint town is home to the Jack Daniel's Distillery, the oldest registered distillery in the country, where you can observe every step of the art of making sour-mash whiskey. Tours are lively and informative and involve a lot of walking throughout the beautiful grounds (including the spring that continues to source the whiskey) with stops at several buildings—among them Jack Daniel's office. Some tour options include sampling flights of different whiskeys. Note that even though Lynchburg is a dry town, you can buy a personalized bottle at the distillery's shop, and the whiskey inside it is considered "free," a loophole in the law.

Polynesians brought sugarcane to Hawaii more than 1,000 years ago, long before plantations were established on the Islands in the 1800s. Ko Hana grows 34 varieties of heirloom sugarcane and harvests it all by hand, then presses and distills the juice to make small-batch pure-cane rums. Stop by the tasting room at the farm in rural Kunia near Wahiawa, in the heart of the central valley, for tastings. Standout rums include Koho, a barrel-aged rum, and Kokoleka, made with pure cacao and raw honey. Sign up in advance for tours, which happen daily every hour until 4 pm and include a side-by-side tasting of white and barrel-aged rums. For a more in-depth experience, reserve a spot on a farm tour (Thursday morning at 10) and sample canes as well as rums.

Tucked into a residential section of The Nations, Pennington Distilling Co. is known for its small-batch spirits—award-winning Tennessee whiskey, vodka, crafted cocktails, and boozy coffee—and the friendly experts who guide the distillery tours and tastings with care. Run by Nashville natives Jeff and Jenny Pennington, the distillery also offers immersive experiences like blend-your-own-bottle activities and craft cocktail classes. The hour-long tour does include a tasting, though tastings are offered separately.

A move to a former warehouse in central Fishtown helped elevate Philadelphia Distilling’s popularity and grow the following of its high-quality spirits. Today, its tasting room, shop, distillery—which is open for tours—and private-event space are all housed on East Allen Street mere steps away from the Fillmore and Punchline Philly. The bar is the focal point, with cocktails expertly made by experienced bartenders using Philadelphia Distilling’s own Bluecoat American Dry Gin, Penn 1681 Vodka, Bluecoat Elderflower Gin, and more. The drink menu features cocktails rooted in ingredients like bitters and citrus, and elderflower and lavender. The food complements the inspired drink list with options like cheese boards, brisket grilled cheese, and snackable veggies.

Using a 250-gallon copper still constructed in Kentucky, this artisanal distillery set in a stately barn just a short stroll from famed Barnstormers Theatre produces exceptional craft spirits, including Chocorua Straight Rye, Von Humboldt's Turmeric Cordial, Tamworth Garden Spruce Gin, and several flavorful cordials. If you're lucky, your stop will include a chance to sample Eau de Musc, a limited-release whiskey infused with an oil extracted from the castor glands of beavers.

It's not all wine in these parts: this outstanding whiskey maker produces fine spirits from a bourbon recipe that dates back generations. You can tour the beautiful, modern distillery with its towering grain silo and tall windows, sampling the straight bourbon and rye whiskeys that have earned numerous awards. Across the parking lot in the endearingly offbeat Hollywood Tavern, you can sip whiskey cocktails, feast on well-crafted gastropub fare, and—occasionally—listen to live music on the shaded patio.

Krystle and Jason Jorgensen make small-batch rye, single-malt whiskey, gin, peach liqueur, apple brandy, and candy-cap bitters in an industrial park distillery 2 miles north of Healdsburg Plaza. The rye derives its overlapping flavors from its "mash bill" of rye and malted barley aged in heavily charred American oak barrels that add further layers of spice and complexity. The Jorgensens pride themselves on crafting their spirits entirely on-site, from grain milling through bottling, a process they describe enthusiastically at their apothecarylike tasting room.

A pioneer of Portland’s burgeoning craft spirits scene, this Slabtown distillery in a 7,000-square-foot warehouse creates superb single-malt Oregon whiskey, vodkas, and aquavit. Reservations for tastings are a good idea, walk-ins are welcome when space allows.

French-born vintner Jean-Charles Boisset's love affair with Napa Valley history climaxed in 2024 with the debut of a glossy high-ceilinged showcase for his hand-distilled small-batch bourbons, ryes, gin, and brandies. The spirits and the burnt-orange The First Millionaire's Saloon, inside a restored Pullman railcar, acknowledge the legacy of town founder Sam Brannan, who established a distillery here in 1860, eight years before his railroad arrived. In 2023, Boisset launched Casa Obsidiana Tequila with the Beckmann Gonzalez family of Mexico (Jose Cuervo). The joint-venture's premium tequilas age in French oak barrels previously used to make wine. Distilling towers and other equipment provide the backdrop, but all the spirits are made elsewhere.

Informative tours and tastings are offered at this celebrated downtown distillery that's garnered dozens of awards for its botanical-infused gin, sweet whiskey, and Krampus herbal liqueur. The distillery's bi-level Penny Farthing Bar & Restaurant is open from mid-afternoon through dinner and serves well-crafted cocktails and Spanish-inspired tapas. 

A claw-foot tub overflowing with Old Hollywood Ginn bottles recalls the era of speakeasies and bootleg hooch at the storefront tasting room of Napa's first distillery since Prohibition. Engaging staffers maintain a partylike mood, dispensing boozy tidbits—like why gin is spelled "ginn"—along with cocktails and flights of fruit-based spirits. The distillery's products include rum, whiskeys, the flagship grape-based vodka, brandies, and bottled cocktails. The whiskeys and rum aren't poured here, but you can taste them down the street at the same-owned The ArBaretum cocktail bar or, when it reopens following renovations, at the distillery itself.

Corsair's second location opened in 2016 and serves as the headquarters for this creator of small-batch whiskeys and other spirits. The hourlong tour includes a 45-minute history of the distillery that ends with a 5-spirit tasting. Tastings are available without tours, and cocktail classes are also available. Dogs are welcome on the large patio.

Cutwater is best known for its more than 20 flavors of canned cocktails, including a Lime Margarita, Vodka Mule, and Rum Mint Mojito. Their tasting room and kitchen in Miramar is a full-service restaurant and bar with mixed drinks, neat pours, and tasting flights. 

Located at the Kingman Airport Industrial Complex, this distillery in an unassuming red building pours samples of its award-winning barrel reserve–aged rums and popular agave rum (along with two other rums, two whiskeys, and a vodka). Tours of the distillery explain the process of converting blackstrap molasses into fine spirits.

Distillery owner Dietz Fischer’s father founded the popular Fischer & Wieser's Das Peach Haus next door, and the family’s been growing peaches since 1928. After Fischer trained with a brandy maker in Austria, he came home to Texas and decided to experiment with making peach and pear eau-de-vie in a former garage, which he turned into a distillery. In addition to the distillery—where he now makes and sells eau-de-vie, gin, vodka, and rum—he runs a tasting room here with a huge outdoor patio, a Thai food truck, and great cocktails.

It’s always a good time at the distillery, where brothers Gary and Kevin Kelleher, inspired by their grandfather, decided to distill vodka and gin in 50-gallon copper pots and hand-craft everything in small batches. Come for happy hour and sample great cocktails in a beautiful tasting area (with outdoor seating), or drop by for weekend brunch. Along with other Texas tried-and-true favorites, they do an outstanding shrimp ceviche, pulled pork nachos and frozen cocktails. Or book a distillery tour and tasting, and see how it's done.

This small craft distillery is racking up national and international awards for its Conniption American dry and navy-strength gins, as well as its cold-distilled cucumber vodka and Damn Fine Liqueurs made in collaboration with Raleigh’s Videri Chocolate and Slingshot Coffee Company. The intimate tasting room is open on the weekends for quick tastes and for more involved behind-the-scenes tours that give you a look at the unique two-step distillation process. Downstairs, the Corpse Reviver bar, with its velvety blue lounge seating, shows off the best iterations of the products made upstairs with craft cocktails.

Reproductions of these two operations sit near the Mount Vernon estate, on the sites of the originals. In 1799, the distillery was one of the largest American whiskey producers. Today, using an 18th-century recipe and processes—thanks to the excellent records kept by Washington—small batches of his whiskey are made and sold here. During guided tours, led by costumed interpreters, you'll meet an 18th-century miller and watch the water-powered wheel grind grain into cornmeal before seeing the grain being distilled. The mill and distillery are 3 miles from Mount Vernon on Route 235 (Mount Vernon Memorial Highway) toward U.S. 1, almost to Woodlawn. General-admission tickets to Mount Vernon include the gristmill and distillery.

London-style gin got the ball rolling for Michael and Jenny Griffo’s industrial-park distillery, which also produces vodka, whiskey, brandy, liqueurs, and bottled cocktails. Michael, who handles the distilling, has a PhD in physics research, but the spirits satisfy as much for their creativity as the scientific rigor. Case in point: the single-malt whiskey Michael developed with the brewmaster at neighboring Lagunitas Brewing using barley mash from one of the latter's beers. A small bar near the entrance serves single tastes, flights, and cocktails. The barrel room and adjacent patio host live music and other events, often with food trucks.

Go behind the scenes to see how vodka, rum, whiskey, and gin are produced—from distillation to bottling—on this tour, which pairs nicely with a tour of the nearby Maui Pineapple Farm. Indeed, the distillery’s flagship brand, Pau Vodka, is made with Maui Gold pineapples, creating a unique liquor that’s clean and easy to drink. At the end of the tour, you can taste it and other spirits. Afterward, stop by the gift shop for all things pineapple. If you're feeling peckish, Haliimaile General Store, open for lunch and dinner, is just across the road.

Using a 1,200-liter Arnold Holstein still, the folks at Hardshore gather and employ all aspects of Maine’s natural bounty in their gin—not the least of which is pure water straight from Sebago Lake. The result? A spirit that tingles with fresh mint, bright rosemary, and botanicals like orris root and coriander. It’s a boon for most any cocktail, which the staff at this tasting room shakes up with aplomb and loves to chat about.