Ep. 114 - The Innovation of Margie Samuels and the Evolution of Maker's Mark

Transcript

Drew Hannush (00:00.554)
Welcome to Whiskey Lore, The Interviews. I'm Drew Hanisch, the bestselling author of Whiskey Lore's travel guide to experiencing Irish whiskey, experiencing Kentucky bourbon and the brand new epic tale of the lost history of Tennessee whiskey. And today we are about to jump into a brand of whiskey that I've talked about briefly on my Whiskey Lore Stories podcast episodes, the one about, um, how bourbon got its name. And I dived a bit into the significance of branding in whiskey.

And if we're going to talk about brands of whiskey, one that has always stood out in this regard is Makersmark. And the woman behind that brand is Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Famer Margie Samuels. So today we're going to learn a little bit more about this remarkable woman and learn more about where Makersmark is at today and where it is heading in the future with my guest, Beth Buckner, who is the senior manager of innovation and blending at Makersmark. Beth?

Welcome to the show.

Beth Buckner (00:59.348)
Thanks. Hey Drew, thanks for having me.

Drew Hannush (01:01.634)
Oh, it's great to have you here. And, uh, many questions have popped up in my mind over the last couple of years since I visited maker's mark, because when I visited at that time, there was makers 46 and there was the flagship. And now when I go to my shelf, there are all these new bottles popping up. And, um, it sounds like you would be the person that I probably should talk to, to find out a little bit about what's going on with this innovation that's going on.

at Makers Mark.

Beth Buckner (01:30.856)
Oh yes, lots of things happening, but all exciting and all a lot of fun to work on.

Drew Hannush (01:36.834)
Fantastic. Well, we're going to start off first diving into history because I always love going into the history part of things first, uh, to talk a little bit about Margie Samuel. She's a very interesting woman in, and I didn't know actually, because I did the episode and dug into a little bit of the surface information about her. Uh, I was surprised. I went to familysearch.org like I like to do occasionally now as part of my habits and researching people and um,

found that she didn't just pop up out of nowhere with this tie to whiskey, that she actually came from the Mattingly and Moore distilling family, which that family goes back to the very origins of Kentucky distilling. And so when we talk about how she just kind of worked into this industry, it's interesting to note that she would have had that kind of a background.

Beth Buckner (02:35.333)
Very, very interesting.

Drew Hannush (02:36.474)
Yeah. So she, uh, talk a little bit about her and her, um, the influence that she had on the brand. My understanding is that basically T W Samuels, the brand was kind of faltering at some point. And so it got sold off and now, you know, Bill Samuel senior has all of this, uh, money and free time and Margie was a little bit, uh,

frustrated that he had nothing to do.

Beth Buckner (03:08.68)
She basically said, go out and get a job, find something to do, just get out of the house. And they found this distillery in Loretto, Kentucky that had a spring fed lake, which is where we get all of our water for our distillery. And it was the distillery was set up and it was the perfect place. And the first thing they did was burn the family recipe, because they didn't love the whiskey. And then it was Bill and Marty who started baking.

Drew Hannush (03:10.782)
Hahaha

Drew Hannush (03:30.571)
Mm.

Beth Buckner (03:37.068)
bread to understand the flavoring greens. And it's where they really decided, we're not going to use rye, like traditional, we're gonna use soft red winter wheat. It grows well in the community. It gives us that soft, creamy taste profile that we really want. And it all started with Margie going, let's bake bread, let's figure it out. And that's where it all started.

Drew Hannush (03:59.57)
So this is an interesting thing, because I've always wondered since hearing that story, how well you could devise the flavor profile of what's going to end up being whiskey from a loaf of bread. Have you ever experimented with that in any way?

Beth Buckner (04:17.68)
We actually did bake loaves of bread with different types of wheat to see can you tell a difference? Like, is the story true or is it just, it's true. It's 100% true. Like the crust is different, the crumb is different, the texture, the density, the aroma, everything changes based off whether it's wheat or rye and variety and all of those things.

Drew Hannush (04:26.72)
Okay.

Drew Hannush (04:38.71)
That's really amazing. So, and I know you could tell the difference between a rye bread versus, uh, you know, one made with wheat, but, uh, the different styles of wheat. Do we know what types of wheat they were probably toying with at that time?

Beth Buckner (04:53.324)
I don't know about variety specifically, but there's obviously like a hard red and a soft red winter wheat. Soft red winter wheat is what grows really well in this region and what they settled on from a taste profile standpoint. There's also white wheats, which are more for baking.

Drew Hannush (05:10.195)
Okay. And so with something like, what would you say the characteristic you probably are getting the most out of that soft, soft winter wheat?

Beth Buckner (05:20.768)
Um, it has this very like creamy and soft approachable characteristic. So like when you in classic makers mark, it's soft on the palette, but there's a ton of flavor, but it's also creamy. You get this, this the viscosity in your mouth feel that is really pleasant.

Drew Hannush (05:31.512)
Mm-hmm.

Drew Hannush (05:39.078)
Okay. Um, so talking about some of the other things that she, uh, brought to the brand because, um, uh, there's a very unique personality to the maker's mark, uh, experience in terms of branding.

Beth Buckner (05:52.628)
Yes. So what we always say is Margie is responsible for why you buy your first bottle of Maker's Mark. Bill is the reason you keep coming back, but Margie is the reason you pick it up in the first place. So Margie created the iconic bottle shape for Maker's Mark. She actually made a paper mache instance of it, brought it to the kitchen table and said it in front of Bill and said, and here's the bottle. And there was, I'm sure, spirited debate after that, but...

Drew Hannush (06:01.122)
Hmm.

Beth Buckner (06:21.2)
she decided what that was going to look like. Margie created the font for the label for Maker's Mark. She decided on the SIV, which stood for Fourth Generation Samuel's Distillers. We found out later they were actually the sixth. So it's the one thing that, you know, Bill Jr. thinks is hysterical. It's the one mistake his mom ever made. It's immortalized in history. And I think the most iconic thing is the red wax. So Margie was a collector of pewter.

Drew Hannush (06:44.846)
Thanks.

Beth Buckner (06:50.504)
And there was always the mark of the maker on the bottle of the piece. And it's how she got the name for the brand, Maker's Mark. But she also said it needs to stand out. And so she hand dipped a bottle in her kitchen in red wax. And it's still how we hand dip every single bottle today.

Drew Hannush (07:04.83)
and it's still how we hand them every single moment. I heard a rumor that after she did that, the fried chicken never tasted the same again. Never. Yeah, you gotta watch that. So yeah, the hand, the labels that are very unique in their presentation, everything about this really kind of throws back to an earlier time, yet still.

Beth Buckner (07:13.864)
Never.

Drew Hannush (07:34.106)
retains an elegance. And it makes me wonder when you're coming up with new bottles for these new whiskies, what do you have to keep here? Obviously the red wax.

Beth Buckner (07:36.096)
Yes.

Beth Buckner (07:49.576)
Obviously the Red Wax. Obviously the SIV stays, because it's just part of the bottle design. But anytime we're looking at things, it's always understanding how do you stay true to the heritage of the brand, and how do you make sure everything halos back to classic. So whether it's bottle design, or liquid flavor development, or anything, it's always haloing back to classic and remembering who we are and how we started.

Drew Hannush (08:15.594)
So the name Starhill Farms, was it called Starhill Farms before that or was that something that they came up with?

Beth Buckner (08:23.906)
I don't know the exact answer for that one. Bill Jr. can give you all the history and all the things.

Drew Hannush (08:26.004)
Okay, yeah.

Drew Hannush (08:30.802)
Yeah. Um, because it was the, uh, Burke Springs distillery before it was, and that is a historic distillery as well. And I wonder how many of those original buildings are still probably, uh, on, on the property from the old distillery.

Beth Buckner (08:48.06)
Yeah, there are a few left. I know we have the courthouse, which was one of the first liquor stores in the state, is actually kind of behind my office, down the path just a bit. So that's still standing. The basement of the distillery is part of the natural or the original building.

Drew Hannush (09:05.23)
Okay, all right. When I was there, where the tasting room is, you basically have built this into a hill, which is very interesting. And I think that's where you're aging your... is that where you're aging your longer aged whiskeys? Okay.

Beth Buckner (09:26.629)
So that's where celery lived. It's also where Weir Makers 46 is aged.

Drew Hannush (09:31.782)
Okay. And that was an eye opener for me. And we'll talk about that in a minute about, when I was on the tour, how you guys are aging 46, in terms of the barrel design, which is, which is fascinating. But let's talk a little bit about your experience at Maker's Mark and how you got there. As I understand it, this is the only distillery that you've worked for. So how did, how did you,

Beth Buckner (09:33.399)
or study.

Beth Buckner (09:59.546)
It is.

Drew Hannush (10:01.154)
How did you find Maker's Mark? Was it something you were already drinking and you really wanted to work there or was it kind of this was the job that was available at the time?

Beth Buckner (10:11.316)
Well, to be honest, the bourbon industry was not the industry that I had my eye on when I graduated college. I graduated with a degree in biology and thought I wanted to do infectious disease research. And let's be really clear, after 2020, I'm so glad that was not my career path. Yeah, but it was actually my dad who was like, why don't you look at the bourbon industry? And I said, dad, there's no science in bourbon.

Drew Hannush (10:27.822)
Ha ha.

I hear ya.

Beth Buckner (10:38.484)
I want to work in science. I want to understand. And I found a temporary job in the lab at Maker's Mark. And he was like, just apply and see what happens. And so I did, and I got it. And I walked in and 20 minutes later, I was like, oh, I'm wrong. There's a lot of science department. And so it was kind of natural. I started our quality control lab. At the time, we did not have an innovation department. So all the innovation was kind of born between a couple of different groups, really out of the quality lab.

and just naturally led into the progression of an innovation department where I am today.

Drew Hannush (11:14.294)
And when you came on board, there was makers, the regular makers, and there was 46. This is the thing that I find fascinating is about how quickly that evolved, but that still is a fairly recent evolution. As I said, when I was there in 2018, there wasn't really anything, uh, other than those two. So what were you, uh, what did you manage back in those days? Uh, what was, what was your,

task that you mostly handled while you were there.

Beth Buckner (11:47.584)
Yeah, so in the quality lab, I really partnered with our distillery and our warehousing team. So understanding maturation and our barrel rotation and all the things that make MakerSmart consistent day in and day out. All the practices that we do to keep things the same so that every single drop of MakerSmart tastes as it should. Same thing with MakerSmart 46. When I started, I started in July of 2013, we actually launched Cast Strength that fall.

Drew Hannush (12:16.321)
Oh, okay.

Beth Buckner (12:17.4)
the Kentucky market. It was the first time we commercially released Makers Mark Castor. And then it kind of took this accelerated journey the next 10 years into our private selection program, which is our single barrel program, and then our wood finishing series. And then last year, obviously, Makers Mark Cellar aged.

Drew Hannush (12:36.142)
All right, very good. So you had to have developed a taste for whiskey at some point in this process and the idea of how you're going to be testing these barrels and understanding these barrels. Did you have mentors that kind of helped you along the way or did you just start buying bottles off the shelf and saying, let me see what this stuff's all about?

Beth Buckner (13:03.092)
Yeah, well actually it was our quality manager at the time, Diane Rogers, who was my boss. And she said, I'm putting you in charge of taste panel. And I said, Diane, I don't drink whiskey. And she goes, you're gonna learn. So it was really kind of understanding why we do what we do and how we do it. And then really understanding Maker's Mark as a product as a whole.

Drew Hannush (13:13.89)
Hehehehehehe

Beth Buckner (13:24.732)
And so I appreciated the taste behind it. I appreciated the people who were making it. I got to know the people that were working in the distillery, in the warehouse, in the bottling. And seeing the passion behind the people and the brand makes you have a completely different respect and understanding of it. And so you kind of fall in love with all the pieces of Maker's Mark and makes me appreciate the whiskey even more. So that's how I started. It was along the way that with encouragement of others that you just kind of

Figure out your strengths and weaknesses, especially when it comes to your palate and through a ton of practice. And I don't mean like drinking heavily every day. I mean, you know, really understanding nuances that you kind of develop a palate for the product.

Drew Hannush (14:02.107)
Right.

Drew Hannush (14:09.758)
It's, did you find that your experience with foods and other things started to change as you started gaining this awareness of finding flavors and texture in whiskey?

Beth Buckner (14:20.916)
Yes, I am constantly critiquing everything that I cook now. I'm like, there's not enough complexity or I want more of this. And yeah, it's a blessing and a curse.

Drew Hannush (14:23.874)
Hahaha.

Drew Hannush (14:29.83)
I think it's funny because whenever I'm traveling now and I get water, I analyze the water. It's gone to the point where I started out sort of in beer and then moved to wine and then went into whiskey and then I hadn't gone back to wine for a long time and then all of a sudden I come across a bottle of wine and this happened during the holidays this year where I took, I was at my family's.

Christmas event and somebody handed me some wine and I'm nosing it. And I'm like, I never did that before. I've never really thought about doing that with wine before. I mean, I've seen people do it, but, um, it, it's just funny because it becomes a reaction all of a sudden. So, um, as you're starting to, uh, see this development and let's talk first about actually your.

Beth Buckner (15:15.611)
It does.

Drew Hannush (15:26.946)
a job in the innovative space. When did that come about and what really were you tasked with once you got to that position?

Beth Buckner (15:35.752)
Yeah, so the Innovation Department was created at the end of 2019. And so there were two of us at the time, and it was really understanding where we are and where we're trying to go. So half of the job is protecting Classic Maker Smart, protecting the core, making sure that our processes stay the same, truly understanding where flavor comes from across the board. So if you make a change in the distillery, how does that impact flavor? If you make a change.

in warehousing, how does that impact flavor? If the barrels, depending on your warehouses, where they sit, how are they aging? Are they aging differently? Do you need to rotate earlier or later? All of those things. And then the other half of the job is creating new and fun and exciting whiskeys. And so working on 10, 15, 20, 30 year plans into the future because in this industry you plan in decades. It's not in months, this is definitely in decades.

Drew Hannush (16:31.01)
Hehehe

Drew Hannush (16:34.81)
I was going to say, it's really interesting, especially with something like the seller aged product that for you to go in that direction, you really have to make a decision years earlier. How long has that been in the process of being developed?

Beth Buckner (16:51.884)
since 2016. Yes.

Drew Hannush (16:53.882)
Okay, okay. And I'm sure there's a lot of people who have said, you're, uh, you're a weeded whiskey. Why are you not going for longer ages? If you think about the wellers and Pappies and the rest, those are weeded whiskies that do really well over a period of time in a barrel where I always like to say rye whiskey kind of loses some of its personality, the longer it sits in the barrel. Um, why do you think there was such a hesitation for the

long time in getting makers to an older whiskey state.

Beth Buckner (17:27.28)
I think the first thing is, you know, when Bill Sr. and Margie founded the distillery, they founded it on a taste vision of what they wanted their whiskey to taste like. And it was soft and it was approachable and it was something that you could easily share with others. And the most important thing was it was bitter free. And so every single process that's in place at the distillery is based off their taste vision and the perfect maker's mark, which ultimately means bitter free for us.

And so our aging window to get the consistent maker's mark is six to eight years. Anything after that, you get some over extraction from the barrel, you lose the balance of the sweetness and complexity and you just start going overly oaked, a bitter and back palate, which is off target for maker's mark. And so it was just out of scope. It was an automatic no for us.

Drew Hannush (18:00.588)
Mm-hmm.

Drew Hannush (18:15.79)
It was an automatic snow. Yeah. Is it something that you can, I mean, if you got to a point with all of this whiskey and you found that it was getting too bitter at a certain point, what would have happened to that whiskey? Would it have just become part of something that you blend into your regular, maybe in small, bits? Or, you know.

Beth Buckner (18:35.966)
That would have been the goal. But what we actually did when we decided to actually start seller age was we started with a taste vision. And we said, if we could make an older version of Maker's Mark, what would it taste like? And so we said it would be, we started with cask and we said it would be deeper and richer and more complex. It would have notes of these like fortified fruits, but ultimately it would still be bitter free. And so

when we opened the limestone cellar in December of 2016, this environment stays 50 degrees and colder all year round. And so you're standing in a whole new environment going, huh, we might actually be able to do this. And so we took a few barrels. We found barrels side by side in the warehouse. We moved some into the cellar and we left some behind in the warehouse because I'm a scientist by nature and you always need a control to understand what actually happens in every day. And then is your experiment working?

Drew Hannush (19:13.558)
Yeah.

Drew Hannush (19:30.827)
Mm-hmm.

Beth Buckner (19:30.972)
And we tasted those barrels another year in and we go, okay, something is definitely changing. These are aging very differently. And then you tasted the next year and you go, okay, it's working. We're getting a completely different taste profile. You're not getting the impact of the tannins because you don't have that severe temperature swings where you're pushing the whiskey into the wood and pulling the tannins out, but it's still oxidizing and maturing in a completely different way. And so it was just monitoring that as we went and tasting side by side until we got to a point

the taste vision for SellerAge that we wanted.

Drew Hannush (20:03.494)
Something really interesting I've been reading in some of the historical documents that I've been going through is that some of these old distillers used to leave the bung cork out. They would let them just air. And it makes me wonder even what that would do to a whiskey letting it escape, those vapors escape easily rather than forcing them to go out through the wood.

Beth Buckner (20:17.644)
interest.

Beth Buckner (20:31.18)
My first assumption is you're going to lose a lot more whiskey out of your barrel. More than evaporate out. I'm sure it's going to taste completely differently too.

Drew Hannush (20:38.102)
Yeah.

Drew Hannush (20:41.61)
Yeah, I'm thinking too, when you're talking about this idea of putting it into a very controlled area where your temperature is that low, a lot of distillers will take their barrels from a more aggressive place and stick them in the middle of the distillery or down towards the floor to try to, which it does stay cooler down there. But you're still going to get some temperature swings with that. So

Is this something that you had ever heard anybody else really doing in terms of trying to keep that consistent temperature? Um, that kind of led you guys to head in that direction.

Beth Buckner (21:20.024)
At the time, not from a bourbon standpoint, but when you think about the Scotch industry as a whole, their climate is very different. They could age Scotches 20 and 30 years because they didn't have the extreme temperatures that we do in Kentucky. It was kind of taking all the knowledge of maturation in the room at the time, which we had members of our warehousing team in there that had been in the warehouse for 30 years. You have all of this knowledge in the room across multiple people going, okay, we're

This is the prediction of what we think could happen based off what we know from the industry as a whole. And we're lucky enough that it worked.

Drew Hannush (21:55.53)
Yeah. So I guess you're going to find out over time if there's a sweet spot for these whiskies because, so are you holding a good amount of barrels out to try to get to 13 and 14 year to see if it's still is heading in the direction you want, or do you feel like you've kind of hit that sweet spot?

Beth Buckner (22:17.764)
Well, because everything starts as classic makers mark at six years before it's ever moved into the cellar, we can only move so many at a time because we only have so many spaces. We do expect that there will be a peak maturation time in the cellar. We have not reached it yet. We're still learning, which is the exciting part of my job. You never stop the learning process. So we do expect there to be a peak maturation time in the cellar. We just don't know what it is.

Drew Hannush (22:24.642)
Mm-hmm.

Drew Hannush (22:43.398)
Okay. And is that a wide release or is that something that was just a set number of bottles that you put out?

Beth Buckner (22:52.052)
It was a set number of cases, but it was the first global launch for the brand. So it was the first time that we ever launched a brand new liquid across the globe all at once.

Drew Hannush (23:00.482)
Okay, and does it seem like this is you're gonna have enough supply to keep this rolling for a while or?

Beth Buckner (23:06.632)
Yes, we've got plans for years. It does say stay small for a while, but it gets there.

Drew Hannush (23:14.654)
I guess you also have to kind of watch and see how your customer reacts as well. And are they, they've asked for it, but once it, but once it's out there, do they buy it?

Beth Buckner (23:21.972)
they've asked.

Beth Buckner (23:25.972)
They did, they did. It was the first time we'd ever had something like that at the distillery before where it was, they'd been yelling, yelling politely, screaming and clamoring for years. And we released it and we had people lining up the night before it was released to try to buy it in the gift shop the next morning. And, you know, it was great to see, it was a lot of fun. It was overwhelming at the same time from a standpoint of like, okay, we're finally at the finish line.

Drew Hannush (23:27.623)
Okay.

Drew Hannush (23:35.95)
Ha ha ha.

Beth Buckner (23:54.688)
But it's been amazing.

Drew Hannush (23:57.73)
So it's interesting to hear you talk about the protection of the, uh, the core whiskey because the core whiskey is really what everything is made from that you guys make. So, um, the mash bill for that, is it, uh, how much, how much wheat is in that mash bill?

Beth Buckner (24:15.976)
Yeah, so it's 70% corn, 16% soft red winter wheat, and 13% malted barley. 14, math is hard today.

Drew Hannush (24:22.35)
Okay. Yeah. Do some of these barrels speak to you as you're trying to plan out which ones are going to go into the cellar?

Beth Buckner (24:34.596)
Not for me, because every single practice that the distillery team, the operations team does, is all about consistency. So all the grains are checked for consistency. Every barrel is checked before it's ever filled with distillate. We do taste checks all the way through maturation. So you're checking before it goes into the barrel, twice while it's aging, before it's dumped.

Drew Hannush (24:42.357)
Mm-hmm.

Beth Buckner (24:57.192)
So you have all of these checks in place to make sure everything's aging consistently. So it's not like I have a honey spot or a sweet spot in a warehouse. All of the barrels are going to be great. So.

Drew Hannush (25:05.131)
Yeah.

So, so what are, because I've been to the distillery and you walk into the, um, with the limestone, uh, cave, I guess we would call it. And you get to do the tasting in there and you see a room that has barrels in it. But I know that's not where you're storing all of your, uh, regular makers, Mark whiskey. Um, what, what are your warehouses like? Are they the seven story Rick houses or are they, uh, shorter, uh, in terms of size?

Beth Buckner (25:38.188)
So we have a variety. So because we inherited some of the warehouses when we got on property, we've built different sizes. So we have warehouses anywhere that hold between 3,000 barrels and upwards of 50,000 plus. So you have some that are six floors, you have some that are seven, you have some that are five. The one on campus in main campus is only three floors. So there's nuances and aging and, you know, certain warehouses age a little bit differently, but that's.

Part of the excitement and fun for me in the job is understanding how those nuances impact and is this one aging slower or faster? And that's why there's never a specific age on Maker's Mark. That's why it's always age to taste, because it's all about ensuring peak maturation for each barrel

Drew Hannush (26:19.064)
Mm-hmm.

Drew Hannush (26:23.686)
Okay. Cause the question that will always get asked if you walk somebody into a warehouse, that's that big is do you rotate those barrels to try to create that consistency? So you guys do.

Beth Buckner (26:34.22)
We do, we do. All of our floors rotate except for the middle. So every barrel starts middle and up for the first three years of its life. After three Kentucky summers, those top floors rotate to the bottom.

Drew Hannush (26:46.442)
Wow. Okay. Very nice. That's gotta be quite a chore. Yes. Wow. Okay. Uh, if you want to build muscles, this is the, this is the job to go to. So it's interesting. We talk about the idea of not getting a bitter flavor profile in anything that's really a focus for you guys. So when I first heard of, uh, makers,

Beth Buckner (26:52.29)
It is for our entire warehouse team.

Beth Buckner (27:00.02)
Yes.

Drew Hannush (27:14.882)
46 and I heard French oak staves. The first thing I think is that there's a lot of Possibility for introduction of tannins in there How do you treat those staves and what do you do to make sure that doesn't become an issue?

Beth Buckner (27:30.344)
Yeah, so it's actually we partnered with Independent Stave Company and the development of Makers 46 and they created this French oak stave cooked a specific way where it kind of locks the tannins on the inside of the stave. But the outside of the stave is where you get all the caramelized sugar and the things that we're looking for. And when we do the process, we take fully matured maker's mark, add 10 virgin French oak staves into the barrel and then let it finish in.

now the Limestone Cellar, but at the creation, it was just a cold environment for an additional nine weeks. And it's really the cold environment that's the key, because in the summer you would actually push the whiskey further into those staves and pull out the tannins. So it's every single part of the process has an impact. So it's the cold environment for nine additional weeks gives you the taste profile of Makers 46.

Drew Hannush (28:03.061)
Mm-hmm.

Drew Hannush (28:12.727)
Yeah.

Drew Hannush (28:21.834)
So those barrels that you put those slats into, has it been pre-made for the future edition of these staves or how are the staves anchored in there?

Beth Buckner (28:33.576)
So we actually do is you have to take the head off the barrel We put the staves on a ring and so they're sat in the barrel We put the head back on and fill it back up and roll it into the limestone cellar

Drew Hannush (28:44.478)
Okay, that makes sense. I thought it would be really interesting because I know there's been experiments done where people have cut grooves into barrels to try to get more wood contact, which would not seem like something Makers Mark would want to do because you are, again, trying to get wood contact, but you're not wanting to over oak your whiskey if you can possibly help it. So what do you think those staves really...

Beth Buckner (28:53.549)
and

Drew Hannush (29:11.19)
bring to this whiskey because it's the one that I have in my glass right now. And it's probably my, it's my favorite makers so far, but I have not dipped too deep into all the new expressions that are out there. But what do you feel like those staves bring to this whiskey?

Beth Buckner (29:27.14)
So the thing I love about 46, what Bill did is he spent six months creating a taste vision of what he wanted it to taste like. It was three sentences on a huge sheet of paper that we have hanging on a wall in innovation and the very first word was yummy. And we go, okay Bill, you're going to have to define this a little bit more. And for him, yummy was obviously bitter free, but it was something that was easily enjoyed. That's what he meant by yummy.

Drew Hannush (29:46.055)
Hmm

Beth Buckner (29:53.948)
And then he wanted a higher intensity of the baking spices. And he also wanted a longer finish, but no bitterness and tannic impact. Well, typically tannins are how you get the longer finish. And so what that stave does and what it showed to us is there's a ton of flavor to be unlocked through oak, whether it's French oak or American oak and how you treat the stave and how long it finishes with the whiskey. But for 46, what it does is it amplifies those caramel notes, it amplifies the baking spices. It lets...

Drew Hannush (30:02.368)
Hmm.

Beth Buckner (30:23.468)
the whiskey get a little bit longer of a finish, but it never goes bitter.

Drew Hannush (30:28.946)
It's really interesting because it does emphasize all the things that I really like in, uh, in bourbon. And yet it also brings on like this, this cinnamon note and this, um, and this little spice bite, which is something that I love in rye whiskies, but some people will say, I don't want that spice bite, but it's not overly aggressive. And I think the other thing that rye brings is the Kentucky hug, uh, where when you mix that corn and rye together, it,

Beth Buckner (30:42.701)
work.

Beth Buckner (30:54.464)
Yes.

Drew Hannush (30:58.43)
becomes very aggressive, whereas with Rye on its own, it doesn't tend to have that same kind of a, uh, an experience. Um, so this is kind of like the best of both worlds, cause you're getting some of that spicy note in there, but it's not overly aggressive and something that you're going to choke on when you're, uh, if you're not expecting to have such a bite that goes all the way down, uh, into your chest.

Beth Buckner (31:18.063)
Right.

Beth Buckner (31:25.908)
Right, and we typically think of spices baking spices. So think Raiding Grandma's Cabinet at Christmas. So it's not gonna be your black and white pepper, it's gonna be more of your cinnamon and nutmeg and clove and all of those notes.

Drew Hannush (31:31.66)
Yeah.

Drew Hannush (31:38.326)
So let's talk about the wood finishing series, because this seems like a great progression. Was that inspired a bit off of the 46 and what was kind of your goal in terms of what you were gonna do with the wood finishing series?

Beth Buckner (31:52.872)
So for us, innovation was 100% inspired from 46. It actually is how, when Bill Jr. did it, he laid the guardrails for what innovation at Maker's Mark was to be for the future. And so it was understanding there's a ton of flavor to unlock through oak, there's a ton of different ways to express flavor, and it was really through the private selection program, which was our single barrel program, or still is, that we learned how much flavor there is and where you can push boundaries.

Drew Hannush (32:16.747)
Mm-hmm.

Beth Buckner (32:20.648)
And it was through that and trying to develop new staves and just understanding different flavor profiles that we said, okay, there's a ton of stories that we could tell, how do we do them thoughtfully and how do we do them the right way? And so Wood Finishing Series was the way that we chose to do it. And we think of that as a storytelling series. And so we had the first five years laid out before we ever launched the first one and it started in 2019 and it was telling the stories of our processes that impact flavor.

Drew Hannush (32:44.394)
Mm-hmm.

Beth Buckner (32:48.876)
So we did an entire year based off of our yeast and the flavor impact to Classic Makers Mark. We did a, 2020s was based off the fact that we season our wood outside for a full year before we make our barrels. To kind of leach out the tannins, break down some of the other compounds in the wood to bring the vanillas and the caramels out. We did a year focused on fatty acid esters and that impact to flavor and texture. We did a year focusing on our barrel rotation.

So explaining the differences of why we start all of the whiskey on the top three floors and then rotate to the bottom three for the last years. And then 2023 was focused on barrel entry proof. So why we go under the barrel at 110 and what that really does for Makers Mark. Yeah.

Drew Hannush (33:32.566)
So how do you emphasize those things like yeast? How would you end up emphasizing that in the whiskey?

Beth Buckner (33:38.24)
So we started the same way Bill did. We started with a taste vision. So we tasted the yeast strain in the distillery and we came back and said, what does this bring? And so the goal was to kind of pull out or enhance the fruit notes and some of those baking spice notes because you get a little bit of both with our yeast strain. And it was another partnership with Independent Stave. We said, this is the taste vision. How do we get there? And so they gave us a few Stave recommendations. We would do a individual bottle soak because

Finance would kill us if we did full barrels at a time of this. And so we did individual bottle soaks, and we tweaked along the way. And we would say, okay, we like this, but we need to amplify this or pull back on that. And so after multiple rounds, we find a stave, and we don't know anything about it until we pick it. We don't know how it's cooked or variety or anything until we say, this is the stave we want, this is the whiskey that it makes. But starting with a taste vision and knowing what winning looks like makes my job so much easier.

Drew Hannush (34:09.326)
Hehehehehehe

Drew Hannush (34:36.638)
Mmm having independence stay right down the road doesn't help hurt you too much either

Beth Buckner (34:40.06)
Also, I'm great. No, it doesn't. It's a great thing for us.

Drew Hannush (34:44.47)
Yeah, it's really interesting because I'm sure this probably really helped you in terms of expanding your experience with flavor profiles as well. Because when you're tasting something that you can taste whiskeys and you can start to pick different things out of whiskeys. But when you go to different mediums, sometimes it's kind of like a relearning process and understanding the flavors that you get out of yeast. How do you go about?

doing that? I mean, is it, uh, are you, I'm, I've nosed yeast before, but I don't know that I've ever tasted yeast, uh, that way. And what's that experience like?

Beth Buckner (35:25.204)
So we because we propagate from you know our mother strain every time and we make our yeast on property We have what we call jug yeast which is kind of how you start the yeast process And so we actually got a sample and tasted that and it kind of looks like a hazy beer at this point What we're tasting but it's really just kind of taking a step back and it's not even Trying to think the best way to phrase it it's not trying to learn something new it's learning how to articulate what you're tasting

And I find sometimes that's the hardest thing to do is, I know what I'm tasting, but what's the word for it? And learning who you're tasting with and how they talk about things. We had a 30 minute debate one day over a word and I was like, we're talking about the same thing. We're just using three different words to describe it. It's...

Drew Hannush (35:54.253)
Right.

Drew Hannush (35:59.702)
Yeah.

Drew Hannush (36:08.866)
NNNN

Drew Hannush (36:12.402)
Yes, it's the fun part about traveling and trying different whiskies from different areas, because as I drink Scotch whiskey and you're over there and people keep talking about sultanas, and I'm like, what the heck is a sultana? Oh, it's a raisin. Okay, now I get it. We're using different words, but we've kind of, you know, if we could bridge that, we could probably figure out what each of us are talking about. So I imagine in the lab, you have a lot of those kinds of discussions.

Beth Buckner (36:30.102)
Yeah.

Beth Buckner (36:41.64)
Yes, yes. In our innovation team, we go back and forth a lot. What are you tasting? What are you getting here? I don't get that. Tell me where you're getting it. It's a lot of fun.

Drew Hannush (36:51.55)
Yeah. So, um, the one 10 proof, that is something that you guys have always done in terms of your barrel entry proof. Okay. And, um, and so what was the decision on the wood finishing series was to try to not adulter the whiskey with water, uh, as, as much as you can.

Beth Buckner (37:01.088)
Yes, it is.

Beth Buckner (37:14.936)
So what it really was, was it's the same process. So you take Finish Maker's Mark, add the staves. And the goal of that one was to really amplify the vanilla, the caramels and the tannins, but in concert to each other. So everything should always be in balance. And I was so glad that, you know, BEP or barrel entry proof was our last year, because we actually released a DNA set where we explored the entry proof for Maker's Mark and the impact on flavor.

Drew Hannush (37:42.092)
Mm.

Beth Buckner (37:44.304)
And so we had done 25 barrel experiment where we had it at 110, 115, 120, and 125. And we released half of those at the distillery in the Kentucky market as educational understandings of why we do what we do in its impact. And it is not maker's mark unless it goes into the barrel at 110.

Drew Hannush (38:03.87)
Wow. What are you finding with the higher proofs? What's kind of being lost along the way?

Beth Buckner (38:08.84)
You get completely different flavor profiles. Like things are expressed completely differently. 110 and 120 mimicked each other the most. You would think 110 and 115 would be closer, but they weren't. 120 had a like very bright, almost pineapple tropical fruit note to it that was not expressed in any of the others. So there's something about our distillate going into a barrel at 120 that does that. But.

It is not the Maker's Mark profile unless it goes in at 110. At 125, it was great whiskey, but it was almost nondescript. It was not Maker's Mark.

Drew Hannush (38:43.926)
Hmm. It's really interesting to add that in with all of the other things that you have to take into consideration when you're talking about what is the whiskey going to taste like when it reaches the consumer. We talk about yeast. We talk about that. So that's a really interesting series. And I'm kind of sad that I've missed that experience through, because it would be fun to be able to pull those different parts of what makes a whiskey, a whiskey.

and how difficult it could possibly be to recreate the same whiskey. And we've talked about the fact in the past that even the staves that you're using in the barrel, they're all coming from different trees. So when you get a single barrel product, you're gonna get something different in every barrel you get, because there's a different history behind all of those different trees and where those staves came from. And your job...

is to make sure that what's at the end is going to work out. How do you solve that? Is it through barrel picking? Is it through basically blending a lot of different barrels together to try to even out and get that distinctive flavor profile?

Beth Buckner (40:06.28)
To me, it's about consistency all the way through the process. So it's, you know, looking at the grains coming into the distillery because the grains need to meet a certain quality specification. The barrels need to meet a certain quality specification. So we treat all of the wood the same way before it's made into a barrel. So you're trying to eliminate as many variables as possible. Obviously, that's not the case. But it's just about controlling the variables.

at the same time. It's why we are tasting before we're rotating. So we, they spend a minimum of three Kentucky summers at the top of the warehouse. We taste every single lot before it's rotated down to make sure it's ready to be rotated. It's the same thing before we pull them out. And then, you know, it's just about making sure as much as possible, we control consistency all the way.

Drew Hannush (40:54.794)
Is there a reason to put them up top to start with? Is there something about the way that the whiskey ages that suggests that it should be more aggressive upfront?

Beth Buckner (41:05.908)
I think for us, and I don't know the full story behind it, but rotation was normal in the process because it was how you counted your barrels for the longest time. And then when we could stop doing that, most distilleries stopped because it's very labor intensive. But for Maker's Mark, it's really those top three years were focused on the extraction out of the barrel, getting as much from the wood as we can on those upper floors where it's just hotter, there's less humidity.

Drew Hannush (41:14.94)
Mm.

Beth Buckner (41:33.1)
just working in and out. The last three years, we kind of want it to rest a little bit more and become one complete whiskey. And you have a lot more humidity on the bottom floors. It does not get as hot as the upper floors do, but it's still extracting from the barrel. It's still oxidizing. It's still doing everything that it's supposed to, but it's just what we have found works the best for our product.

Drew Hannush (41:55.606)
So what was the idea behind the 101? Because that to me, it's an interesting point. You could do a bottled and bond if you wanted to. You decided to go one proof point higher. Why would that one percentage point or that one proof point, why was that the choice?

Beth Buckner (42:17.996)
So Makers 101 at 101 proof was what Bill, senior and Margie, kind of kept behind the counter cabinet or whatever at the house. And it's what they shared with friends and family. It was their perfect proof point. It was something different than classic Makers market. It was kind of the hidden stash come over here and let's have a taste. Let me share it with my best friends or family that's in town for the weekend. And it's a proof point that a lot of people resonate with. They want something a little bit higher than 90 proof.

They don't quite want to cast-strength whiskey. To me, it's one of my favorites to drink, especially in cocktails, because it gives you all the flavor of a cast-strength without some of the alcohol intensity with it. But I'll be honest, I reach for a different bottle every time I pull something off the shelf, because I enjoy all of them, so.

Drew Hannush (42:59.103)
Mm-hmm.

Drew Hannush (43:06.87)
Very nice. Well, it's nice to have the cast strength option as well. And it would be interesting to note really what pops out more in that cast strength to you. Do you sense that something elevates a little bit more than everything else in there?

Beth Buckner (43:11.189)
Yes.

Beth Buckner (43:26.324)
I think it depends on the day for me, which is an easy answer out, but it really does because your palate changes day to day. I think you get a little bit more intensity of whiskey overall at Casque Strength because the alcohol proof does come into play a little bit more. I get more of the baking spices. Sometimes the caramel comes out a little bit more at Casque. Sometimes it comes out a little bit more at 101.

Drew Hannush (43:33.152)
Mm.

Drew Hannush (43:51.918)
Okay. In your continued learning process that you're involved with something called the inaugural Blenders committee. Is that, is that a beam Suntory thing and you're kind of sharing information between distilleries? What is that program about?

Beth Buckner (44:09.12)
Yeah, so it is a Beam Suntory company-wide program. And for us, what they have done is they brought blenders across the globe together. So we have blenders from Suntory, from their spirits, their wine, their RTD programs. We have blenders from Irish and Scotch. We have blenders from tequila and then from bourbon. And everybody comes together. We meet twice a year and then, you know, online meetings. And it's really a way for us to sit down and understand the complexities across categories.

Drew Hannush (44:37.579)
Mm-hmm.

Beth Buckner (44:37.62)
And then how do we create a common way of tasting or talking about, you know, our whiskey and the liquid and all of the things, because you describe Scotch differently than you describe bourbon, which is very different than how you're going to talk about tequila. So how do we all come together from different backgrounds and different spirit categories and go, okay, we're gonna talk about this, and this is the common language across the board. So it's not, you know, how you were talking earlier in Scotch, they call it one thing and you're going, oh, it's a raisin.

Drew Hannush (45:06.964)
Mm-hmm.

Beth Buckner (45:07.06)
you know, how do we all get on the same page of being able to talk across categories?

Drew Hannush (45:12.842)
Be interesting to note too, do you get into discussions about barrels with the Scotch producers especially because they are using your barrels over there and how those influence what they're going to have.

Beth Buckner (45:20.833)
Yes.

Beth Buckner (45:26.44)
Yes, you do. We talk a lot about barrels. We talk about a lot about warehouses and sizes and configurations. And one of the things that I love is, you know, you can go, hey, I'm seeing this happen in the distillery. Has anybody else had this issue or has anybody else seen this? And it's a whole other resource of people that are experienced and understand the industry to go, hey, I've seen this. Try this or look at this or we haven't had that, but we had this and it's similar.

As far as the barrels, I'll be honest, I love makers mark barrels because we're so such sticklers about our quality of the barrel. And they're like, send us as many as you can. So

Drew Hannush (45:59.991)
Mm-hmm.

Drew Hannush (46:04.774)
So if you're consistent on this end, because this is a question that I have posed and since this is your sister distillery down the road, I'm sure this will fit in our discussion here, but I just think it's funny that when Jim Beam came out with their Devil's Cut, I decided, because the idea is that they're first initially they were putting them into something like a paint shaker to try to get all that extra whiskey out of the out of the wood.

I think from what I've heard now, they drive them in a truck and they hit a lot of bumps. And that's how they now extract the devil's cut out of there. But when I'm in Scotland and I see a Jim Beam barrel, I always ask them, do you see a difference between the ones that have been, that the devil's cut has been taken out of them versus the other? But that does speak to this idea of.

Again, the consistency, if you're consistent in flavor over here and they're aging their whiskies in those barrels, they've got much more of a control kind of a situation rather than having a wild range of barrels or some that may have more of that residual bourbon left in them.

Beth Buckner (47:16.84)
And I think the interesting thing about Scotch is they want different barrels for different reasons. So because they have so many different work streams. So it's not just, you know, Kentucky barrels that they're getting. They're getting barrels from everywhere. They're getting different sizes. They're exploring with different flavors. So it depends on which distillery you're talking to in Scotch, what they're after, what they're looking for. So they need all of them.

Drew Hannush (47:42.582)
So with all of these new SKUs coming out, what is something we might be looking forward to? Is there anything you can kind of share with us that is coming down the pipeline?

Beth Buckner (47:53.148)
Yeah, so we talked about wood finishing a little bit. That was a five year storytelling series. I think one of the things for me is we are so excited to start the next series of wood finishing. So it's telling completely different stories, allowing our consumers to engage with the distillery in a completely different way while still giving amazing whiskeys to the world. And then obviously, I think the thing that I'm most excited for is this year's release of Seller Age, because it's

You know, it was such a great success last year. It was such a good learning experience for us, and we're still continuing to learn. So it's the bright spot on my calendar in the next couple of months that I get to work on again.

Drew Hannush (48:33.154)
Very nice. I have not been to the distillery since 2018. It was the first distillery tour I ever went on. Uh, what will I see? I've gone back to some distilleries that I've been to in the past and 2020 changed a lot of stuff for a lot of distilleries and things got reworked and that, what, what kind of things would I probably expect to see when I come back to do a tour of this time?

Beth Buckner (48:57.716)
Yeah, so we have completely revamped our home place where you start your tour. So they've completely redone the entire building. There's now a bar at the home place, which is beautifully done. There's artwork across campus. We have a new lab office building. So the quality lab finally got a building large enough for all of their equipment and their people because it was one or the other there for a little bit. And then we have Margie's best student, which allows us to tell Margie's story. So it's this beautiful artwork.

across the glass that tells her story. It has part of her pewter collection in there and really gives us a designated space to tell Margie's story outside of just bits and pieces.

Drew Hannush (49:39.946)
That's really nice. I tell you, it's a beautiful drive out there and it used to feel very isolated to people who would be doing the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, but you got neighbors now. I mean, Limestone Branch has been there for a while, but Log Still distilleries down there. You can really just go south of Bartstown now and really soak in a variety of distilleries and make a day of it.

Beth Buckner (49:50.432)
We do!

Beth Buckner (50:04.02)
You can, I would still say give you some extra time on backgrounds if you're not familiar with them. They're curvy.

Drew Hannush (50:07.986)
Yes, very much so. Or as you're driving along and you're just looking at scenery, keep your eye on the road. Very nice. Well, Beth, thank you so much for sharing the story of Margie Samuels and also your story and getting us introduced a little bit more into some of the concepts behind what is going into those bottles of, of Makers Mark, all the new ones that we're seeing and you know,

Beth Buckner (50:16.288)
Yes, very much so.

Drew Hannush (50:38.247)
again, best of luck to you in terms of continued development in what you're doing. And again, thank you for sharing your story.

Beth Buckner (50:47.648)
Thanks for having me, Drew, and come visit anytime. Please, we'd love to have you.

Drew Hannush (50:51.426)
Will do. Cheers.

Beth Buckner (50:53.144)
Cheers.