Maker’s Mark KSBW
Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky | 45% ABV
Score: 6/10
Good Stuff.
TL;DR
Straight forward. A small collection of flavours. But £25? Natural Colour? 45% ABV? What is there to complain about.
Rye Rye Why Do You Cry?
Sitting down to relax, read a book, watch a film, chat to your wife… sometimes needs an accoutrement. Something to hold. A sweet treat of indulgence to sip away whilst you watch, for the 200th time, Die Hard, Die Hard 2 or Die Hard with a Vengeance. The tired debate of whether or not they’re Christmas films rears its ugly head once again.
I have a problem in that I tend to pick an interesting whisky to fill the role of drinks for the film. No sooner has the film started am I zoning out to think about what that flavour is that I just smelled, or the place that the smell reminds me of, or trying to place that time when I did that thing and woke up lying on the ground but it smelled remarkably like this whisky. I inevitably miss the film, Mrs Crystal has disappeared because I was away in the whisky world, and I’m sad that I both missed the film and now sitting alone again.
Whisky for me is a world that I can’t help wandering into whenever I get the chance, if only to discover new things, new smells, new connections or share it all with the community. But there does come a point when you just pang for a whisky that delivers one or two notes of interest, and then sits there all day long delivering them. I used to pick a single malt for this duty - a Glenlivet or an Aberlour or something else of middling mediocrity, but I’d get annoyed that the whiskies had fleeting semblances of interest and fell short owing to greed and indifference. The ‘if only’ phase.
So what then. What is there that can fill the quite strict role of being a whisky you can sip all day long, without worrying that it’s not giving you the “full experience”, isn’t capitalising on the whisky boom (and maybe bust?), and is cheap enough that you can keep a stock of it without feeling you’d wasted your money? Enter the big bald eagle beauty of bourbon.
I’m as much an expert in bourbs as I am anything else - which is to say I’m not. I’ve tried maybe 3 or 4 bourbon whiskies over the past couple of years and found them really good, but my focus was always on Scotch. That’s where my eyes would always turn to, and American whisk(e)y would just be something that other folk enjoyed. I tried Mellow Corn and Stagg and Michter’s and a few other things, and would always end with “I should get a bottle of that”, but then buy a Scotch instead.
Recently I bought the Fragrant Drops 29yo North British and fancied some free postage, so I looked around for a bottle that would bring me over the threshold. “Why not get a bourbon?”, I thought. Some really good deals to be had in this arena, but especially in the Maker’s Mark brand - under £30 for a 45% ABV whisky? Aye it’s NAS and probably coloured because I assume everything that looks this dark probably is, but so what - let’s be having it. So it was: a bottle of Maker’s Mark worked its way to the Misty Isle and gave me the perfect dram to switch off with.
Review
Maker’s Mark Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky, 45% ABV
£25, worldwide availability - Natural Colour, No Filtering.
Score: 6/10
Good Stuff.
TL;DR
Straight forward. A small collection of flavours. But £25? Natural Colour? 45% ABV? What is there to complain about.
Nose
Bolder than I expect - a bit sharp to start, but then into the burnt sugars and caramels, soft toffees and chocolate bars. Sweet but not cloying or saccharine. Some malty notes in there - lightly toasted bread maybe?
Palate
Palate follows the nose - rich, sugary caramel shards on a dod of vanilla ice cream. Sticky toffee pud with the pips of dates bringing some rich dark fruit. Sweet but not overly so. Butterscotch and hints of icing sugar too - a great dessert drink.
The Dregs
Reading the Maker’s Mark website, it’s easy to resonate with their artisanal parlance. The history is especially illuminating, beginning with Bill Samuels Sr. crafting a bourbon that he wanted to share with his pals. His wife, Margie, took control of the marketing vision, penning the bottle design, labels and even deciding to dip each bottle in wax for that hand-crafted feel. The website states that Margie is also responsible for inventing bourbon tourism! There’s also a wee mention of Bill Sr. testing his mash bill by baking bread with it, thus getting an idea of the character without the extensive process of distilling and ageing it. Whisky bread - that’s something I’m all over! Can you imagine a bit of whisky toast?! Haud me back.
Throughout the generations of being in production Maker’s Mark has shunned rye - a grain which some in Dramface lovingly call “The Devil’s Grain.” Rye is allegedly responsible for the more soapy notes in whisky, and something that stopped me from loving the recent SMWS bottling - the soap ruined that one. Bill thought the same about rye’s influence on whisky, and instead turned to corn, wheat and malted barley to make up his mash bill - “soft red winter wheat” specifically. There’s also chat about the local limestone that filters out iron, which makes bourbon unpleasant, and deploying a calcium and magnesium rich water with which to use in their mash. It’s all engaging stuff.
In the hand, the Maker’s Mark Kentucky Straight Bourbon is simply simple. It's great sipping whisky to exist as a partner to a task. It’s big and sugary and interesting enough to enjoy over an evening’s film watch or book read without getting cloying or stuffy. It doesn’t fatigue like maybe a more potent or higher ABV bourbon, or whisky, might. Pour, drink and unwind without worry that the whisky will distract. Counter to what I suspected this bourbon is not coloured - the virgin oak casks rapidly impart their character and colour to this spirit. Also of note is a quote from Bill Samuels Jr., when he states that Maker’s Mark is not filtered:
“When you charcoal filter, the charcoal can’t differentiate between good and bad flavors.” - Drink Spirits Interview
Digging more into Google, it’s said that Maker’s Mark Kentucky Straight Bourbon is aged for 6 years - that’s in-line with the maturation for which some Scotch producers charge £35+. So we have a 45%, non filtered, natural colour, 6 year old whisky.
I bought this for £26 but it can be had for as low as £24 right now. We oft complain that Scotch whisky doesn’t deliver much in this price range - weak, pale examples of what Scotch whisky can be. 40% chill-filtered and coloured monstrosities of fodder designed for masses of indifferent socialites. There’s the Shackleton blended malt, which is great and can be found under £30, but after a while it gets a wee bit boring, or the temptation to carry on to more potent Scotch is always too hard to resist. This, on the other hand, keeps things sustained with a higher ABV and sweetly satisfying flavours, without causing that slink into other things. It’s not going to win awards for complexity or depth of character, but for those times when all I want is a nice little something to keep me company, I’ve been turning to this more often than Scotch.
A quick note too that Maker’s Mark are B-Corp certified, Tier 2 Regenified and part of an initiative to take their grain from Regenified Certified sources by 2025. Bruichladdich makes a big noise about their B-Corp status, probably because it’s a real task to get there through the stringent process of certification. Good on you, Maker’s Mark.
If you fancy a bourbon that passes the time with you, without distracting from the main task at hand, then it’s well worth picking up. My film intake has increased dramatically as a result. I’m sure the cries of “that’s wack dude, you should be trying this instead” will ring out shortly, and I’m here for it - what should I turn to next in bourbon-ville that isn’t soapy? Answers on a postcard below. Now, to get stuck into some whisky cocktails!
Score: 6/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC
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