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Price: $75.00

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Producer	Maker's Mark
Country	United States
Region	Kentucky
Subregion	Loretto
Style	Bourbon
Sku	210000015947
Size	750ml

Notes from our Spirits Team

October 2022, we visited Maker’s Mark Distillery in Kentucky to select a single barrel. Maker’s Mark does their barrel program differently from any other distillery, such that one isn’t selecting a finished product ready to be bottled, but rather a stave profile with which the bourbon will undergo a short finishing period with inner staves inside the barrel. 

The five stave options – a combination of American and French oak with various toast, sear, or bake levels – impart distinct aromas and flavors to the underlying wheated bourbon. We particularly like the fruit notes offered by the Roasted American Pure staves and the richer chocolate from the Roasted French Mandiant staves, so we first tried those in combination with fewer Maker’s 46 staves to add a little intensity. While the result was lovely, it lacked texture; more a whisper than a full bodied bourbon. Four iterations later, adding and subtracting various staves, we hit upon our ideal combination. Here are our tasting notes from a bottle that just arrived:

Nose: Blueberry crumble, dulce de leche
Palate: Bittersweet chocolate, raspberry sauce, pastry. Luscious texture
Finish: Gentle warming spice, lively, lingering

At Maker's Mark, our wood-finishing series was created to explore new, unique expressions of our signature whisky. Beginning as fully matured Maker's Mark® at cask strength, Private Selection is created by adding 10 custom wood finishing staves to each barrel. It's then aged in our limestone cellar to extract a unique, flavorful taste profile. Participants in this special barrel program get their say in the selection of these wooden staves. 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 Selection has a customized finish and taste profile that is unique, yet undeniably Maker's®. 

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