Wax On Wax Off

At Maker’s Mark, each bottle is said to involve the “4 W’s” -- water, wheat, wood, and wax. The red wax resting on the top of every bottle of Maker’s is a time-honored tradition that dates back to 1958 and the very first bottle the distillery ever sold.

The idea came from Margie Samuels who founded the distillery with her husband. The marketing brains of the operation, she came up with the bottle design for Maker’s Mark as well as the idea to dip each bottle in wax. At the time, bourbon was seen more as moonshine than the connoisseur’s beverage it is today. The design and detail that went into Maker’s Mark’s bottle design were part of what made it stand out against its competition then, and now.

This distillery was one of the most beautifully landscaped places we've been to.  It was nice to just stroll the paths throughout the property sipping on our Maker's Mark slushies!  A lot of time and money was spent turning this place into what it is today.  

They're still doing things just like they did them in 1953. From the old letterpress, to the way they hand-rotate every barrel and hand-dip every bottle. 

At Maker's Mark, their wood-finishing series was created to explore new, unique expressions of their signature whiskey. Beginning as fully matured Maker's Mark at cask strength, Private Select is created by adding 10 custom wood finishing staves to each barrel.  It's then aged in their limestone cellar to extract a unique, flavorful taste profile.  The finishing staves can be any combination of five flavor profiles chosen especially for this program. With 1,001 possible stave combinations, each expression of Private Select has a customized finish and taste profile that is unique.

For the distillery's 60th anniversary (2014), a glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly was unveiled on a ceiling at the Maker's Mark rack house.  Made of about 1,300 individual pieces of glass, The Spirit of the Maker, will cap the tour for throngs of visitors who come to the distillery, designated a National Historic Landmark.  Its blue glass represents water, amber and green for corn and wheat, and red for Maker's Mark's famous wax.

There's an old joke at the distillery that goes, "If we could make it any faster, we wouldn't." Because at Maker's Mark, it's one bottle at a time.  And now was our time to taste each bottle of it!