Whiskey Advent Calendar Tasting: Maker's Mark 46
This is part of my series on tasting notes from the 2021 Drinks By The Dram Bourbon Advent Calendar.
Whiskey for December 18th, 2021: Maker's Mark 46
The distillery
Tonight's whiskey is called Maker's Mark and is made by Maker's Mark. Like the Knob Creek yesterday, Maker's Mark is owned by Beam Suntory after trading hands a number of times from 1981 to 2005.
Originally Maker's Mark started when T. William "Bill" Samuels Sr. purchased the Burks' Distillery in Loretto, Kentucky in 1953. Maker's Mark is one of the grandaddies of wheated bourbon in the united states, and for the longest time they just sold "Maker's Mark". Today they sell a few expressions of maker's mark, all mainly from the same mash bill but finished, bottled, or blended (or not blended) in different ways.
Well known master distiller Dave Pickerell worked at Maker's Mark from 1994 to 2008.
The whiskey
Maker's Mark 46 is standard Maker's Mark, but finished with "seared french oak staves". It was a pet project by Bill Samuels Jr. and the 46 comes from "stave profile #46" that was ultimately selected for the finishing project.
The apocryphal story around Maker's Mark getting its wheated start is that Bill Samuels Sr. used various mash recipes to make bread and picked the Maker's Mark mash bill from the winning loaf. Maker's Mark, in fact, contains no rye and the mash bill is 70% corn, 14% malted barley and 16% wheat. This normally makes a fairly light and "bready" whiskey.
46 is a little more complex thanks to the staves used to finish it.
Look
46 is the golden brown of dark, high quality honey. It took a couple swirl attempts to get some thin runny legs to form, but they were there with enough trying.
Nose
To go along with looking like honey, 46 smells like honey too. Floral and sweet like clover honey, in fact. There's plenty of alcohol welling up with it. Along with the honey smell there's vanilla and oak playing along. It's quite nice.
Taste
46 starts subtle and sweet, with notes of caramel and vanilla. The alcohol then opens up and you get hit with the oak and toasted grains. This trails off to black pepper before fading out to the finish. The finish is long and sweet with caramel, honey and vanilla play along with oak giving it an almost dessert-like quality. The lack of rye is very noticeable despite the black pepper in the middle, and this is often times what people really love about Maker's Mark.
After water
A little water calms the brightness of the alcohol and tones down the floralness. You're still getting honey, vanilla and oak. There's a little caramel or butterscotch faintly trying to pop in as well. You might even catch a whiff of maple syrup.
The taste smooths out a little and loses its bite. You get light caramel/honey notes all the way through now. The alcohol still tries to swell and bring that black pepper and oak with it, but it's not as pronounced. The character is largely the same, but tamer and sweeter. I'd definitely would go with a little water if drinking it neat.
Summary
A perfectly pleasant no-rye whiskey. If you find yourself really disliking the grassy spice of rye and it's funk, give this a try. If you're looking for a sweet, easy drinking bourbon, same thing. I think you can get more interesting bourbons, but like Knob Creek, this is a soft hand that really no one is going to complain about. I haven't had original Maker's Mark in some time, but I do remember liking 46 much more than it when it first became available.
I don't think you'd be upset buying a bottle. I don't think you'll be wowed. It'll be good though!
Given the honey notes to it that persist across dilution, it might be worth trying it in a Brown Derby Cocktail