Since its inception in 1953, Maker’s Mark has stayed true to its original ethos: whiskey aged to taste, not time. While you won’t see an age statement on a Maker’s bottle, most of the distillery’s releases reach their flavor pinnacle by the eight-year mark—the point at which Maker’s feels its whiskey is softest, creamiest, and bursting with vanilla, caramel, and baking spices. After that point, the distillery has always felt that the barrel tannins will start to dominate. That hasn’t stopped curious fans from wondering how an older Maker’s expression would actually taste.
Enter Maker’s Mark Cellar Aged, which appears to have found a solution to this problem. It’s made with 11 and 12 year old Maker’s distillate but matured in a different way. Back in 2016, Maker’s blasted into a limestone hill near its distillery in Loretto, Kentucky, and built a cellar made completely of limestone. Inside, this hillside bunker doesn't seem so different from a traditional rickhouse—three floors and a 12,000-square-foot space that holds 2,000 barrels. But the climate is worlds apart, holding steady at 50 degrees or cooler year-round. That means the barrels are subjected to far less dramatic temperature variations than the traditional Kentucky rickhouses.
What does that mean for the whiskey? Cellar Aged is darker in tone, and built to offer more depth of flavor than the core Maker’s. The barrels for this release were first aged in the regular Maker’s rickhouses for about 5 3/4 years to 7 years before being transferred to the limestone cellar to complete the maturation.
For this inaugural expression, which is at 57.85% ABV and goes for $150 a bottle, 87% of the bourbon is 12 year old, with 11 year old constituting the remainder. The plan is for Cellar Aged to be an annual release, with the blend changing slightly from year to year. The whiskey will be launched in mid-September but will be limited. Maker’s fans eager to try this older expression will need to keep their eyes peeled.
