Maker’s Mark Private Selection
Next up is a bottle I have been sipping on for a bit. This is a Maker’s Mark Private Selection made by the folks over at Gordon’s Wine back in June 2021. For those that are less inclined to click on the link and read from the Maker’s website, I will summarize. As many of you may know, the Maker’s 46 is an alternative version of the traditional wheated Maker’s Mark. To set the 46 apart from its older sibling, the folks over at Maker’s Mark shoved ten seared French oak staves into a traditional Maker’s Mark barrel for nine additional weeks and bottled it at cask strength, ranging from 107-114 proof. Apparently with 10 staves and 5 stave options, you can make 1,001 different combinations of oak staves, which in theory can make 1,001 different variations of Maker’s Mark. For those that want to understand how the hell Maker’s came up with the number, it’s a mathematical formula that calculates permutations with repetition. You can do the math and figure this out for yourself like a crazy math professor with wall-to-wall chalkboards, or you can click here for a nice visual depiction (hint: n=5, r=10). But back to whiskey….
Maker’s does provide some guidance as to what flavors each of the 5 different stave options will impart on the bourbon and they include:
Baked American Pure: Virgin American oak providing brown sugar, vanilla, caramel and spice.
Seared French Cuvee: French oak that is ridge-cut and seared with infrared heat. Provides oak and caramel notes.
Maker’s Mark 46: Seared French oak providing dried fruit, vanilla, and spice. 10 of these are used in Maker’s 46.
Roasted French Mendiant: French oak cooked on low, in a convection oven. Provides milk chocolate, nuts and dried dark fruit flavors.
Toasted French Spice: French oak toasted in a convection oven, first at high heat and then low heat. Provides smoke, coumarin and spice. After Googling “coumarin” (a/k/a not knowing what the hell it is) it says that coumarin is “sweet, aromatic, creamy vanilla bean odor with nut-like tones that are heavy, but not sharp or brilliant” (sourced from here). Coumarin has apparently been banned in the U.S. since 1954 as it can destroy your liver (see the BBC here)...as if we needed more liver damage given our whiskey proclivities…
This particular Private Selection utilizes 1 Seared French Cuvee, 6 Roasted French Mendiant staves, and 3 Toasted French Spice staves….So I suppose I should get some extra-bourbon caramel and oak notes from this tasting, but also some richer chocolate and dark fruits with of course, the liver damaging, but apparently delicious, coumarin. Let’s see how it goes.
ABV: 55.6% (slightly higher proofed than the Maker’s 46 Cask Strength that I previously tasted).
How it smells….vanilla, cinnamon, oak, caramel, maple, cherry…with a dab of water, the maple syrup really shines through as the booziness is cut down.
How it tastes….vanilla bomb to start followed by cinnamon and allspice. The end is lightly oaked with a vanilla caramel sweet finish….with some water, the sip is more peppery to start and then that oaky vanilla sweetness at the end with a malt chocolate finish, which is longer than the sip at full throttle.
Price....$75
Rating.….🥃🥃🥃🥃
Final thoughts….Gordon’s really chose a nice mix of staves on this, providing both a different sip than what traditional Maker’s imparts as well as the Maker’s 46 variation. I always equate traditional Maker’s to a nice smooth easy sip, nothing really challenging with the mellow flavors, but always enjoyable. I tend to like the 46 a little more, as I get more dark fruits and chocolate and I find it more interesting overall. This however, was even a bit more different. Lots of baking spice and peppery notes with some of that chocolate maltiness on the finish when you add water. For a wheated bourbon, it doesn’t taste like it, so you can really see how much the added staves influence the base product. A 4x 🥃 seems appropriate as you get something unique (at a slight premium), but also an interesting variation of something familiar. Plus, it’s bottled at cask strength. While I had it on the shelf for a while, once it was opened, I burned through it pretty quickly.
Some may question the purpose of doing tasting notes for private barrel picks, or in this case, one variation out of 1,001 possible outcomes given the variety of combinations one can have within the Maker’s private selection program. Like all single barrel reviews, it is a bit pointless if you are looking to know what to expect when you purchase any particular bottle. However, I would argue that reviews of single barrels (or private barrel picks) can provide more context as to how difficult it must be for distilleries to produce bottles that are thereabouts the same as any other bottle produced in any other batch, year after year. There’s always going to be a little variation, but to those of us who are NOT super-tasters, it is unlikely we will pick up on the nuanced differences. But barrel to barrel, it becomes much easier to distinguish, and in turn, to appreciate the art in the craft that goes into whiskey making. In this particular case, one gets to see how different types of oak, treated in different ways, can have a dramatic impact in just 9 short weeks.
I think if I were to choose a Private Selection release, the @NiceSipper stave profile would be 5 Maker’s Mark 46 staves and 5 Roasted French Mendiant staves…..what would you pick?
Nice Sipper Ratings Reminder…
All ratings are done on a scale between 1x 🥃 and 5x 🥃 according to the following criteria
1x 🥃 = I don't like this at all and/or not worth the cost by a mile.
2x 🥃🥃 = This is "meh" and/or slightly overpriced.
3x 🥃🥃🥃 = This is good stuff and/or the price is right.
4x 🥃🥃🥃🥃 = This is wonderful and I'm always keeping it in stock especially at this price.
5x 🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃 = This is amazing and/or this is way underpriced for the quality of the experience.
Don’t forget to get your Library Pass to become a member and gain access to Exclusive Content!
The Library is our hidden corner of Nice Sipper where we taste and discuss the more exclusive bottles, whether they be at a higher price or something that is harder to find. This content is exclusive for members only so thank you for joining The Library.
