For many years, underneath the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it philosophy, Maker’s Mark made one whiskey—its flagship bourbon, made the identical approach since 1953. In 2010, the distillery debuted the additional toasty Maker’s Mark 46, which marked a serious turning level for the model. Since then, Maker’s has been placing out a hits parade of stable expressions, together with Maker’s Mark 101, Cask Power, and its Wooden Ending Collection. However all through all of it, one factor has remained constant: All Maker’s Mark expressions had been aged to roughly six years, give or take a couple of months. All that adjustments with Maker’s Mark Cellar Aged Bourbon, its oldest launch thus far.
Maker’s Mark Cellar Aged is a brand new, limited-release expression that mixes 11- and 12-year-old bourbons. To make it occur, barrels of the distillery’s basic distillate spend about six years getting older like common within the firm’s warehouses, enduring the Kentucky local weather’s well-known temperature swings from season to season. After that, the barrels are moved into the distillery’s whiskey cellar for a further 5 to 6 years, earlier than the liquid is mixed and bottled.
That cellar is constructed right into a pure limestone shelf, which retains the temperature persistently cool. This slows down the wooden’s affect on the whiskey throughout maturation, permitting the bourbon to develop a deeper, darker taste with out the tannic bitterness that comes with prolonged oak getting older at greater temperatures.
This inaugural launch is a wedding of 87% 12-year-old whiskey and 13% 11-year-old whiskey, and it’s bottled at cask power (115.7 proof). The maturation course of will keep the identical in years forward, however the particular mix will all the time be made to style, so it might fluctuate based mostly on which barrels are prepared.
“For greater than 65 years, getting older our whisky for a decade-plus wasn’t one thing we did,” mentioned Rob Samuels, managing director at Maker’s Mark. “It’s not that we didn’t consider in it; we merely hadn’t discovered a strategy to do it that didn’t compromise on our style imaginative and prescient – till now.”
The style imaginative and prescient entails bourbon that’s clean, smooth, and creamy, with no chew. With Cellar Aged, Maker’s Mark has discovered a strategy to make older whiskey with out straying from the flavour profile they’re recognized for, and the one which followers have come to count on. The bourbon has aromas of darkish stone fruits, caramelized sugar, and toasted oak, and the palate brings extra fruit, together with darkish vanilla, resulting in a protracted end of caramelized barrel notes and baking spices.
Maker’s Mark Cellar Aged hits cabinets within the U.S. this September with a steered retail value of $150. It’s coming to different markets, together with London, Munich, and choose international journey retail accounts in October, after which making its approach into Asia in early 2024.
