Maker’s Mark | The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails

is a wheated bourbon whisky sold in square bottles and sealed with a distinctive red wax. It is the bestselling premium bourbon in America and yet is also viewed as an important precursor by many of today’s small, independent distillers.

The distillery was founded in 1953 in Loretto, Kentucky, by T. William Samuels (it released its first whisky in 1958) and remained in the hands of the Samuels family until 1981. It has had several owners since (it is currently a part of Beam-Suntory), but production has always been overseen by Bill Samuels Jr. (until 2011) or his son, Rob Samuels, and until recently the distillery’s product only came in one expression.The Samuels family began distilling whisky in America in 1779, when Robert Samuels was an officer in the Pennsylvania Militia during the America Revolution. Samuels migrated to Kentucky in 1784, and made whisky as a farmer-distiller with his son William. In 1884, William’s son, Taylor William Samuels, started the family’s first commercial distillery in Deatsville, Kentucky. Although controlling interest of that distillery was bought by the Starr Distilling Company of Cincinnati in 1909, the Samuels family remained in charge and were partial owners until the plant was closed due to Prohibition. In 1933, the distillery was reorganized and reopened. T. William Samuels began work there as a manager after graduating from the Speed School of Engineering.

T. William, known as Bill, continued at the T. W. Samuels Distillery Co. until 1943, when he left the industry.

In the early 1950s, Bill Samuels returned to the whisky trade. Working in the family kitchen, Bill Samuels is said to have baked and eaten bread to study the flavors inherent in different grains, and to have thereby settled upon the use of wheat as the secondary flavor grain instead of the more common rye. The mash bill for Maker’s Mark is 70 percent corn, 16 percent soft red winter wheat, and 14 percent malted barley. Although probably apocryphal, the story has it that Bill Samuels burned his family’s original recipe for whisky after coming up with his own.

In 2010, the brand broke with tradition and launched a second expression, Maker’s 46, finished with staves of French oak in the barrel and bottled at 46 percent ABV rather than the standard 45 percent. While not a sensation, it was greeted far better than the brand’s 2013 attempt to meet unanticipated demand by lowering its ABV to 42 percent. In the face of consumer outrage, that was abandoned. Better no Maker’s Mark than a watered-down Maker’s Mark.