Maker’s Mark Distillery is a scenic historic landmark, located just outside of Loretto, Kentucky. Visitors are treated to both a walk through history, as well as the distilling process. Learn more in our Maker’s Mark Distillery Tour review!
The post Ma…
Maker's Mark Distillery is a scenic historic landmark, located just outside of Loretto, Kentucky. Visitors are treated to both a walk through history, as well as the distilling process. Learn more in our Maker's Mark Distillery Tour review!
The post Maker’s Mark Distillery Tour Review appeared first on Bourbon Obsessed℠ .
Maker’s 46 bourbon was first released in 2010 and was the first release of what would become to be known as Maker’s Wood Finishing Series. In 2020, on its 10th anniversary, Maker’s 46 Cask Strength was released and that has since become an annual relea…
Maker's 46 bourbon was first released in 2010 and was the first release of what would become to be known as Maker's Wood Finishing Series. In 2020, on its 10th anniversary, Maker's 46 Cask Strength was released and that has since become an annual release. So what is the 2023 version like? Read our review to find out!
The post Maker’s 46 Cask Strength Bourbon (2023) appeared first on Bourbon Obsessed℠ .
The CommUNITY Batch bourbon is a collaboration between Maker’s Mark and the LEE Initiative. First released in 2020 to help hospitality industry workers during the pandemic, this has since become an annual release. Learn more about the 2022 batch in our review!
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Please enjoy our Maker’s Mark CommUNITY Batch 2022 Bourbon Review!
The CommUNITY batch is a collaboration between Maker’s Mark and the LEE Initiative. The LEE (which stands for Let’s Empower Employment) Initiative was founded in 2017 by Chef Edward Lee and Lindsey Ofcacek and creates and implements programs to address issues of diversity and equality in the restaurant industry. One of the LEE Initiative’s programs is The Women Culinary & Spirits Program. Indeed, their mission is to address the void in women’s leadership in the restaurant and spirit industry. Therefore, this year’s CommUNITY Batch is a blend of Maker’s Mark® expressions that the mentees of The LEE Initiative’s Women Culinary & Spirits Program have created going back to 2018.
The CommUNITY Batch bourbon is the ultimate Maker’s Mark Private Selection. What is a Maker’s Mark Private Selection? As described on their website: “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.” There are 5 different staves to choose from, each with a different characteristics, and the combinations result in very unique flavor profiles. Maker’s periodically changes which staves one can choose. Therefore, since the recipes for the Private Selects blended for this batch date back to 2018, this year’s Maker’s CommUNITY Batch contains bourbons finished with 6 different staves instead of five. Isn’t that cool? The percentage of each stave used is listed on the back label of the bottle.
Let’s taste it:
Rested for 15 minutes in a Glencairn
Nose: Sweet cherry candy, but some dark cherry, too; vanilla, cinnamon, caramel, oak & cedar; some leather towards the back; moderate alcoholTaste: Cherry, chocolate, caramel, oak; some butterscotch later onFinish: Cherry sweetness continues; oak, char and a surprising degree of black pepper spice builds; all the flavors linger for a long time; moderate burn
If I had to pick one flavor comparison, it would be cherry Tootsie pop.
People talk about the Cherry flavors in Maker’s Mark, and occasionally I notice that cherry flavor to varying degrees. However, the 2022 Community Batch is just dominated by cherry in a variety of forms, from the nose to the finish. Mixed in are some of the other flavors I would expect from a Maker’s Mark Private Selection, although there seems to be a bit more oak and char than in the many others that I have tasted. What makes this, and the other, CommUNITY batches so special, other than the causes that they support, is that by being a blend of multiple Private Selection barrels they can achieve stave combinations that are not attainable in a single barrel. So some unique flavors can be created, as they are here.
This really is a special bourbon! Have you tried any of the Maker’s Mark CommUNITY batches? What did you think? Cheers!
We hope you have enjoyed our Maker’s Mark CommUNITY Batch 2022 Bourbon Review! The prior batches were a bit different. You’ll definitely want to read our Maker’s Mark CommUNITY Batch 2020 Review!
Would you like to learn more about distilleries and bourbon? Are you planning a trip to Kentucky Distilleries? Maybe you would like to live the bourbon life vicariously through us?
If any of these are true, then check out BourbonObsessed.com today!
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Maker’s Mark is one of Kentucky’s classic bourbons, and the brand and the Samuels are largely responsible for bourbon’s resurgence in the 80s and 90s. Maker’s Mark is an easy to drink bourbon with classic bourbon flavors, but also a bright softer side with noticeable fruit. Get the full details in our review!
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Please enjoy our Maker’s Mark Bourbon Review!
Maker’s Mark is one of Kentucky’s classic bourbons, and the brand and the Samuels are largely responsible for bourbon’s resurgence in the 80s and 90s. So, let’s have a (very) brief history review.
The Samuels family had a long history in distilling before Bill Sr. and Margie Samuels started Maker’s Mark. However, due to bad circumstances and bad luck, the original T.W. Samuels Distillery and brand were no longer in the Samuels family. Therefore, in 1953, when Bill Samuels, Sr. wanted to get back into distilling, he purchased Burks’ Distillery, which itself had quite the long history.
As the story goes, Bill Sr. was not at all a fan of his family bourbon and wanted to make something different; something softer, that he enjoyed drinking. He created his original mash bill by baking bread with the different recipes, and eventually arrived upon using red winter wheat as his flavoring grain. Ultimately, Maker’s Mark bourbon’s mash bill would be: 70% corn, 16% wheat and 14% malted barley.
Let’s taste it:
Rested for 15 minutes in a Glencairn
Nose: Sweet cherry candy, vanilla, caramel, light honey sweetness; light cedar; notes of sweet apple cider in the back; alcohol noticeable but subduedTaste: Black tea, vanilla, light honey sweetness, caramel & oak; cherry candy & apple, tooFinish: Fruit, caramel and vanilla continues into the moderately long finish; char and black peppery spice build; moderate burn.
Well, there is no question that Bill Sr. succeeded in his quest. Maker’s Mark is an easy to drink bourbon with classic bourbon flavors, but also a bright softer side with noticeable fruit. Those flavors carry through the entire sip, although some char and black pepper do add spiciness to the finish.
To be completely honest, when I drink bourbon from Maker’s Mark, it is generally something from the Wood Finishing Series or one of their Private Selections. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the original version; I just prefer those. They have a little more proof and some deeper, richer flavors from the wood.
Are you a fan of Maker’s Mark bourbon? Cheers!
I hope you have enjoyed our Maker’s Mark Bourbon Review! If you would like to learn more about Maker’s Mark Distillery, check out our Maker’s Mark Distillery Tour Review! Or, you can read another bourbon review, perhaps about of one of their special releases in our Maker’s Mark CommUNITY Batch Review.
Would you like to learn more about distilleries and bourbon? Are you planning a trip to Kentucky Distilleries? Maybe you would like to live the bourbon life vicariously through us? If any of these are true, then check out BourbonObsessed.com today!
The post Maker’s Mark Bourbon Review appeared first on Bourbon Obsessed℠ .
I hope you enjoy my Maker’s Mark CommUNITY Batch Review! This is will be the second year that The LEE Initiative and Maker’s Mark have released the CommUNITY Batch. Maker’s Mark has donated all of the bourbon, so the proceeds go entirely to support the cause! The first CommUNITY Batch was released last year, and raised over $500K from 34 blended barrels of whiskey! The money provided assistance to many hospitality industry employees who were affected by the pandemic.
The post Maker’s Mark CommUNITY Batch Review appeared first on Bourbon Obsessed℠ .
I hope you enjoy my Maker’s Mark CommUNITY Batch Review!
This will be the second year that The LEE Initiative and Maker’s Mark have released the CommUNITY Batch. Maker’s Mark has donated all of the bourbon, so the proceeds go entirely to support the cause! The first CommUNITY Batch Bourbon was released last year, and raised over $500K from 34 blended barrels of whiskey! The money provided assistance to many hospitality industry employees who were affected by the pandemic.
Chef Edward Lee and Lindsey Ofcacek founded The LEE (which stands for Let’s Empower Employment) Initiative in 2017. It creates and implements programs to address issues of diversity and equality in the restaurant industry. So far they have distributed over 2 million meals, invested over $1.5 million in small farms, and have given over $1 million in grants to Black-owned food businesses across the country.
One of their programs is The Women Culinary & Spirits Program whose mission is to address the void in women’s leadership in the restaurant and spirit industry. On a personal note, many years ago my wife was the bar manager at the first brewpub in Colorado, and I’m absolutely certain that there was no better person for the job! But I digress, yet in a somewhat relevant way….
Oh, the bourbon! Just like last year, it is a melding of multiple Private Select barrels, this time based on “more than 20 Maker’s Mark Private Selection expressions developed by whisky clubs working in collaboration across the country”. 28 different barrels of fully aged Maker’s Mark were then each aged another 9 weeks with their unique stave combinations. Then, they were mixed together and re-barreled to “vat” another 6 weeks to allow their flavors to mingle together. To me this one is spicier than last year’s. It has noticeable cinnamon and spices, but also ample apple, vanilla, oak and caramel.
For those not familiar with Maker’s Mark Private Select Bourbons, the process is as follows: According to Maker’s Mark “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 our limestone cellar to extract a unique, flavorful taste profile.” For the typical Private Select, one can choose 10 staves in any combination from the following choices: Baked American Pure, Seared French Cuvée, Maker’s Mark 46 (the seared French Oak Staves used in Maker’s 46), Roasted French Mendiant (which replaced Roasted French Mocha in 2021) and Toasted French Spice.
Since the CommUNITY Batch Bourbon was created by mingling multiple different Maker’s Mark Private Selections, it once again has an unusual stave profile. Since the standard Maker’s Mark Private Select Bourbon has 10 staves, the percentages of each are in 10% increments. However in a large mingling such as this, that is not the case and it results in a very interesting blend.
STAVE PROFILE PERCENTAGES
18% Baked American Pure 2 stave
22% Seared French Cuvée stave
17% Maker’s Mark 46® stave
28% Roasted French Mendiant stave
15% Toasted French Spice stave
I love the whole CommUNITY batch idea and the LEE Initiative philosophy. Starting on giving Tuesday the bottles should become available at some regional events and maybe elsewhere. Information is available via the LEE Initiative website at https://www.leeinitiative.org/makers-community-batch. Have you had this year’s or last year’s batch? I hope you had a happy and safe Thanksgiving! Cheers!
I hope you enjoyed my Maker’s Mark CommUNITY Batch Review! Learn more when you read our full Maker’s Mark Distillery review and write up at BourbonObsessed.com!
Are you interested in learning more about individual distilleries? Do you need information to help you plan your own distillery visits? If so, we can help. At BourbonObsessed.com we have an interactive map of ALL of the Kentucky distilleries, as well as useful information for planning your visits. Check us out today!
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