Maker’s Mark Private Select
Exclusive Oak Stave Selection – Dekalb Bottle House (TANSTAAFL)
55.7% ABV
$70
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What the Distillery Says
At Maker’s Mark, our wood-finishing series was created to explore new, unique expressions of our signature whisky. Beginning as fully matured Maker’s Mark® at cask strength, Private Select is created by adding 10 custom wood finishing staves to each barrel. It’s then aged in our limestone cellar to extract a unique, flavorful taste profile. Participants in this special barrel program get their say in the selection of these wooden staves. The finishing staves can be any combination of five flavor profiles chosen especially for this program. With 1,001 possible stave combinations, each expression of Private Select has a customized finish and taste profile that is unique, yet undeniably Maker’s®. Maker’s Mark Private Select® is available in select markets and also at our distillery.
Below are the notes on the different staves
The Maker’s 46® stave: The one that started this whole experiment. It delivers notes of dried fruit, vanilla and spice that you may be familiar with if you’ve tried Maker’s 46.
The Baked American Pure stave: Baked American Pure is American oak that’s slowly toasted. It adds notes of brown sugar, vanilla, caramel and spice.
The Seared French Cuvée stave: Seared French Cuvée is a French oak stave that’s cooked with infrared heat. It imparts toasty notes of oak and caramel.
The Roasted French Mocha stave: Roasted French Mocha is French oak cooked on high in a convection oven. It adds pleasant traces of char, maple and cacao.
The Toasted French Spice stave: Toasted French Spice is a French oak stave, cooked at both high and low temperatures in a convection oven. This stave has a flavor profile of smoke, coumarin and spice.
The finishing with the additional staves is typically 9 weeks.
This specific barrel’s stave selections were:
Seared French Cuvée: 1
Maker’s 46: 4
Roasted French Mocha: 4
Toasted French Spice: 1
What Gary Says
Nose: Caramel, toffee, butterscotch, bits of dark chocolate, hints of anise, cinnamon, french oak.
Palate: Sweet but spicy, caramel corn, toffee, nutmeg, dusting of pepper and cinnamon, hints of clove and vanilla.
Finish: Moderately long with lingering baking spices.
Comments: Like other Maker’s Mark Private Selections, this is more spicy than your typical Maker’s Mark (even the cask strength version). I like this a lot, and this makes an outstanding Old Fashioned. Takes a bit of water well, keeping the spice while tamping down the edges a bit.