Grove City's Town Center Park turns into a sprawling open-air tasting room this Saturday, August 8, as the Grove City Town Center Bourbon & Spirits Festival returns for its 11th year, running from 1 to 10 p.m. with live music, food trucks, artisan vendors, and curated bourbon and spirits tastings, including VIP options.
The festival began in 2013 as a modest local tasting called the Grove City Bourbon Tasting before growing into the full-scale event it is today, according to Eventeny. Over the years, organizers expanded the lineup to include regional craft spirits, live performances, and food trucks, transforming what started as a single-afternoon tasting into one of Grove City's signature annual gatherings. Saturday's edition keeps that same free-to-attend structure: walking around, browsing vendors, and enjoying the music costs nothing, while tasting packages run $30 for eight tickets and include a souvenir cup, per Columbus on the Cheap. Most standard pours require just one ticket, though premium tastings can call for more.
Attendees 21 and older will also be able to carry their drinks outdoors throughout the festival grounds, since Town Center Park falls inside Grove City's Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area. The city's DORA program permits open-container drinking in official DORA cups from 2 p.m. to midnight, effectively suspending local open-container rules within the defined historic Town Center boundaries for the day. Those wanting to plan can get tickets and more information at grovecitytowncenter.org/bourbon-festival, according to Grove City Ohio Government.
A Curated Vendor Lineup Built Around Bourbon Culture
The festival's artisan vendors aren't your typical craft-fair crowd. Organizers require participating crafters to sell items tied directly to bourbon lifestyle and culture, from furniture built out of old bourbon barrels to bourbon-infused, shelf-stable foods and themed woodworking, with vendor applications reviewed by a jury to ensure everything fits the bourbon-heritage theme, the same Eventeny listing notes.
Grove City Brewing Co. anchors the local side of the lineup. Established in 2016, the brewery operates inside a repurposed century-old building on Broadway alongside Plum Run Winery, pouring from 30 taps of small-batch beer and fruit wines, according to Grove City Brewing Company. Plum Run Winery itself dates back to 2012, before later expanding into craft brewing within Historic Downtown Grove City.
Regional Distillers Bring Their Own Specialties
Two regional guest distillers round out the tasting menu. Noble Cut Distillery, founded in Gahanna in 2015, will pour its Salted Caramel Plain Whiskey alongside its lineup of handcrafted flavored whiskeys, vodkas, and 'cellos; the distillery has built a national reputation for its citrus and fruit 'cello offerings and recently added a full-service kitchen to its tasting room, per WhatNow.
Endeavor Brewing & Spirits, meanwhile, will offer gin and bourbon whiskey at the festival. The Grandview Heights operation bills itself as Central Ohio's first craft brewstillery, distilling gin, white rum, aged cask rum, and bourbon whiskey, and it recently opened a hybrid coffee shop and bar concept called Barrel & Bloom in Linworth, according to Breakfast With Nick.
Why Local Festivals Matter to Ohio's Craft Distillers
Ohio now counts 187 active federally licensed distilleries, roughly 3.2% of all U.S. distilled spirits plant permits, placing the state among the nation's top 10 for total distillery permits, per federal registry data compiled by COLA Cloud. Both Noble Cut and Endeavor are featured on the Columbus Distillery Trail, a digital passport tourism program from Experience Columbus that rewards visitors for checking in at participating craft spirits makers across Central Ohio.
That kind of local visibility carries real economic weight for smaller producers. The American Craft Spirits Association's national data project found that home-state sales account for nearly 48.5% of total craft spirit sales volume nationwide, underscoring how heavily small and medium distillers lean on direct engagement with local customers rather than distant markets. Festivals like Saturday's give distillers a direct line to the home-state drinkers who make up nearly half their business.
