Bourbon Trail Tales (Part 4!) - Maker’s Mark
Front and center, a disclaimer- this tour was provided to me by Maker's Mark at no cost, no obligation to review and with no strings attached. They also did not offer the tour to me as a promotion, I reached out to them given we were driving by. I thank them for their generosity in doing so.
Background
One of things I’ve found myself enjoying most about this hobby is whiskey tourism. While you tend to find a fair bit of overlap in some of the talking points (especially at the entry level tours- did you know Bourbon needs to be at least 51% corn?!), each distillery tends to have it’s own special sauce as far what it offers visitors. Back in 2023, I wrote up a three part series breaking down my trip to Kentucky (links at the bottom), culminating in a barrel pick at Peerless. I’m thrilled to bring the series back this year as I check off two more distilleries from my personal bingo card.
We will start with Maker’s Mark! Which has been on my to do list for some time but… Loretto is just a littleeeeee bit out of the way from the standard Louisville, Lexington, Bardstown circuit. This time, however, we were road tripping through KY from DC, making the timing perfect to take a bit of a detour at Star Hill Farms…
Marker’s Mark: Friends of Maker’s Mark Tour
Price/Length: Was provided complimentary by Maker’s Mark, and ran 1.5 hours.
Details: We have to start with the stained glass and glass work, because it’s everywhere and it’s INSANE. Honestly, the whole place is riddled with art. I went to write this, pulled up my pictures thinking I had captured a lot of it, and was bummed to find that I did not take nearly enough pictures of the various art and sculptures embedded in every aspect of the distillery. I consider myself pretty well versed in Maker’s whiskey and “lore”, but the degree to which Star Hill Farms puts art front and center caught me completely by surprise. You turn the corner into a part of their campus, only to find another sculpture or stunning work of stained glass.
After the art, the next biggest surprise was the top to bottom focus on sustainability. Maker’s worked this into every part of the tour. To start, they are a Certified B Corp, which means they effectively passed a sustainability assessment. Along the tour they pointed out one solar array that offsets the energy used by everything involved in the visitor experience (welcome center, gift shops, etc.). Another solar array out of sight provides power for all of their rickhouses. They are also a zero landfill distillery, and at times the very ground we walk on is made from recycled materials.
The grounds themselves are riddled with fun facts and inside jokes specific to the history of Maker’s Mark. A few of note:
They had a master stonemason create a number of stone bridges. One particular bridge is effectively a triangle, and when asked about the design our tour guide told a (possibly apocryphal) story about the stone mason being paid by the foot. The triangle meant a bigger pay day rather than any particular artistic meaning.
The “Rock City Lookout” barn was essentially a joke by Bill Samuels. I failed to note the full story, but my paraphrased recollection is essentially that someone used to paint these barns on a roadway as advertisements, and Bill just decided to have them paint one on the grounds.
The red covered bridge was originally just a figment of an artists imagination, turned retroactive reality. Maker’s hired an artist to do a postcard of the grounds, and he added a red covered bridge that didn’t exist. The postcard was sent out, and then people started asking where the covered bridge is when they arrived at Maker’s Mark. Maker’s then had a red covered bridge built.
After a tour of the grounds, we walked through production, which was not without it’s own set of fun facts! One of the things that struck me is a fairly consistent adherence to a classic way of doing things. In particular:
Maker’s uses exclusively Cyprus fermenters, which are meant to not impart flavor during fermentation. Mike Veach has a detailed breakdown on the difference between Cyprus and Stainless steel, but the tl;dr is that Cyprus is just a bigger pain in the ass to maintain. Maker’s remains committed to using it though because they don’t want to make any change in their process that may throw off production.
Not exactly a secret, but Maker’s comes off the still at 130 proof and goes into the barrel at 110 proof. Again, not news nor revolutionary, but putting whiskey into the barrel at 110 proof instead of the more common 125 proof is a more costly way to make whiskey. High proof into the barrel uses less barrels, but lower barrel entry proof is believed to extract more sugars from the wood as the water molecules are able to penetrate the barrel better.
Every bottle of Maker’s is rinsed with Maker’s, rather than water, before it’s filled. I am sure other distilleries do this, but I know many use water. It’s a simple, but more expensive, switch to ensure that no additional water impacts the flavor of Maker’s in the bottle.
After seeing production, we move into the now immortal limestone cellar, from which Maker’s Mark Cellar Aged gets its name. This is, without a doubt, one of the coolest things I’ve seen at any distillery. To hear our tour guide tell it, you actually are not legally allowed to age whiskey in a cave because of a pre-prohibition law meant to combat bootlegging. So Maker’s Mark called up some wine makers, and asked how they have circumnavigated this. The winemakers said: “Easy! Add a building and a door to the front of the cave… Now you have a cellar!”
The climate in the cellar is quite cool, and we were able to enjoy a pour of Maker’s 46 Cask Strength inside before concluding in the gift shop, where Maker’s offers numerous bottles that you can hand dip yourself with their signature wax.
Overall Thoughts: Undoubtedly one of, if not the most, beautiful campus I’ve had the pleasure of visiting. For anyone on the fence about whether or not to make the trip out to Loretto, I absolutely recommend it. Particularly because Maker’s offers a revolving door of high concept tours that are fairly divergent from what other distilleries are offering. For example, in the summer they offer a “honey drips” tour where you try honey from the various apiaries around the farm. Excepting Cellar Aged, Maker’s offerings tend to be fairly findable (at least in DC), which is not a bad thing but it is worth noting you shouldn’t expect to find some absurd unicorns. But the gift shop is smartly setup to provide you with a unique experience where you can dip your own bottle of their distillery exclusive picks.
Notable Gift Shop Offerings: A few distillery exclusive picks and the latest Wood Finish Series (The Heart). Plus the dip your own bottle experience, which can be done on virtually any bottle available to purchase.
