Marker's Mark Distillery Tour - Kentucky Bourbon Trail

Johnny, what's up with the logo here? So everybody knows what the logo correct? So our marketing genius Margie Samuels She came up with a logo. Okay, the s stands for Samuels Yeah The IV stands for fourth generation distiller and that circle and star and that logo is actually a cattle brand they used on their previous Car on their previous farm in Bardstown, Kentucky. Wow. She was an amazing woman, right? She was the one that did the waxing also, absolutely. Yeah, that's pretty marketing genius We've got a great video for you today on how to have fun outdoors this one is extra fun It's maker's mark. That's right bourbon whiskey like no other down in, Kentucky This was believe it or not Origin began with T Williams Bill Samuel senior. He purchased the Burke's distillery for just $35,000 back in 1953 production began in 1954. The first run was bottled in 1958 under the brand's dipped red wax seal, which is US trademark. That's right in 1960 through the 1970s maker maker's mark was widely marketed with the tagline It tastes expensive and it is and this is one awesome distillery It was listed on the National Register to Historic Places in 1974 and designated a National Historic Landmark back in 1980 and This is the first distillery in America to be recognized while the landmark buildings were in active Production that is super super cool. So we hope you love this video It would mean a lot to us subscribe to the channel Give that support to that how to have fun outdoors crew Give the video a big like leave your comments down below definitely hit the notify bell so you can find out about more of our videos and We've got some other great distillery visits. Also, we've got wine Tasting videos. We got a little bit of all kinds of fun outdoor activities And thank you so much for watching how to have fun outdoors and let's go to maker's mark and check it out Are you trying to punish me for something? Are you trying to punish me before we get started with the tour definitely check out the makers mark.com Website really great all kinds of great information You have the all the history on makers mark the family how it's made They also talk about all the different bourbons there Definitely you get a great variety of bourbons. A lot of people know of course makers mark the classic But now they have a little bit of everything, you know, the makers mark 46. I love the private selection. They've got some great Bourbons there we picked up a couple while we were there even the wood finishing series is fantastic makers mark 101 is pretty special. So a lot of great stuff here and you know what we're gonna show you now is the actual distillery and This is a great place. It's filled with history tradition you'll get to see the bourbon actually getting produced and You would definitely love to visit it. It's a great time They've got events there all kinds of cool things and then, you know, the website also has a bunch of the actual Recipes and cocktails and different things you can do. They also have makers mark shop calm and that's pretty slick all kinds of gifts for the holidays coming up and You can buy all kinds of things, but let's go ahead and get started with the tour at the distillery They take about four hours compared to 30 minutes with those stainless steel ones We're all sealed and waxed at that time. They weren't brought to the bourbon industry at all She actually got in a fight with her husband. He thought it was an unnecessary expenditure Wouldn't work this time at all So she actually broke out the family fryer ruined it threw a bunch of red wax inside of it and dip the first batch of Bottles, we all know who won that argument Also for the bottle as well at that time most bottles were cylindrical or square So she designed that iconic funnel shape as well We all source our glass from a company called, Illinois glass company in Ohio quite confusing. I know a Lot of the things we do here slow us down, but there's quite a handmade aspect to it that we're very proud of Those bottles are all still hand dipped one of our hand dippers can dip 25 to 30 bottles a minute It's crazy to watch them. They get into a stance. They grab the bottle up the carousel dip it spin it twice So right back on the line They switch around about every 30 minutes though, and they just complete a different job within the production facility right over There is our production bottling Facility that's where most of the people work here Folks always ask, you know, we only saw 10 people working here in the gift shop in the visitor center There's always about 50 to 60 folks in that building You can imagine that's quite a bit To be considered a bourbon it has to be aged in a new white oak charred barrel So in the interior you see this char that's charred to a level 3 Which means the interior almost gets blasted with it looks like a flamethrower for about 40 seconds straight Then they missed it to stop the interior from burning Part of why we lose so much due to evaporation is because the bung we use we use a walnut bung That allows us to open up the barrel without having to drill the bung out most folks use poplar It's a lot more watertight. But again, you could drill that out For us we test up we test our product 25 times along the process of maturation So we'll bring it down have it on its side They take basically a mallet and hit either side of that bung and it will pop right out Then they take a object called a whiskey thief, which the best way I can explain a whiskey thief is it's Similar to putting your straw in a drink that you have covering the top of the straw and pulling that product out same exact process We're the only distillery to still hand rotate our barrels all of them start at the top of the rickhouse So you're probably wondering on where all the barrels are But if you look up through the ricks, they're actually at the top right now currently And they spend three years up at the top then they come down to the bottom to finish that aging cycle We have a panelist group of approximately 25 to 30 people who taste that product and really let us know when it's time to bottle We also take that liquid as well and bring it to our lab Put it through a centrifuge and test the DNA on it. We're trying to be as consistent as possible That's why we still hand rotate our barrels The point for us is we want all of our barrels to taste the exact same when we batch them together instead of having different Flavors and different, you know seasons and then batching those together for an inconsistency But it's a fun time this building over here is our original courthouse with a queue It's Kentucky's first drive-in liquor store. You come in on a horse and buggy and get yourself a quarter whiskey When you're leaving and if you don't take the shuttle up, which no harm and that But you can actually walk by and check out the interior of that courthouse Ten Our second owner Bill jr. When he was about to retire He wanted to create his own product and something that he could express and pull his favorite flavors out of So at that point we had created our second product makers 46 that came out in 2010 Now we aged that product in under 50 degrees So for from 2010 to 2016, it was only aged or finished in the winter But 2016 when this is built we had a place where we could turn around that product all year round So we'll go inside go ahead and check that out the coopering area What they're going to be doing is pulling those fully matured makers mark barrels down Emptying them opening them up putting putting in those flavoring states. It'll be much easier to explain when you see that process with your own eyes All that product We'll work on opening the first two rings At that point they'll then take ten of these French oak staves and insert inside on that third row over there You can see that same combination with that spacer on it Now we use a spacer just to ensure that these states don't bunch up We want all that product to work with all ten of those states to get us the exact same flavor profile We want it over 200 combinations Whether it be under open fire, you know infrared oven using different kinds of oak from different regions and the United States and Europe We actually settled on a French oak stave that goes through an infrared oven We should have stopped at stave profile number 46 But we went ahead and did a couple hundred So what we do is we then fill those we actually close those barrels back up Refill them with fully matured makers mark and then roll them into the cellar. So let's go cool off and check out the cellar 16 years old Actually, you're right over here you see through that glass paneling. Those are our ambassador barrels You can sign up online to be an ambassador. It's free They'll put your name on the side of the barrel on those plaques and in five to seven years when your barrel is matured They'll send you an email More welcome to come in and give yourself a bottle with your name on it from that batch that your barrel created So it's quite a long process Try today's our original makers now makers at 90s the only product we made from 1953 to 2010 We'll go ahead and give that one a good old-fashioned nose What we do when we knows our products If we actually open our mouth and our nose and the only thing you're gonna do is lightly breathe through your mouth That's actually gonna naturally circulate all those wonderful aromas over your whole palate And this will be at spot number one to your farthest left when you pick up your glass Those aromas the nose you need a completely different note and also the flavors gonna taste completely different. So on this one at number two is going to be makers 101 and makers 101 is a product that we made in memory of our Founder Bill senior he actually liked makers at around 100 proof. That's what he liked the best It really brings out a lot of citrus notes Some folks get orange peel off of it. But again, it really just depends all to the visual, you know what you smell and taste We're going to give that one a nose. I'm gonna bring it to your mouth. You're gonna get a wonderful aroma It's gonna taste and smell quite different than the first product. It's basically the perfect balance of flavors for me But it really depends what you're looking for Now I mentioned cast strength what that means is barrel strength comes right out of the barrel from between 108 and 112 proof We put in the product at 110 So it can actually lose or gain just a little bit of proof depending on how the ratio of alcohol Alcohol the water evaporated inside of the barrel really depends on the seasons and how they were hand rotated as well This particular batch came out of 109.4 Now cask strength might warm you up a little bit if you've never had a Kentucky Pug you might experience one It's gonna be nice and smooth. There's gonna be no bitter aftertaste to it or no bitter bite So go ahead and give that one a nose folks This is that express product. So now we're changing up the flavors and expressions a little bit by using these French oak safes The 46 safe profiles right here again For only nine weeks to finish that product and express a little bit of a different flavor So go ahead and give that one a nose. You're gonna get some baking spices. I personally get a little bit of nutmeg It really depends Be a distillery edition of the private selects we make So that private select panel that helps folks in the industry figure out what they like and what they want to express out of makers from these five safes right here They actually work for them they work by themselves and create their own Expressions and create their own different notes depending on what their what the recipe is So we have four today in the gift shop now. They have very aggressive marketing names milk chocolate truffle cinnamon dolce toasted marshmallow Don't let those names scare you. They're just light notes are going to get off those bourbons with using these safes right here We're not selling the fireball here. I promise You know if we put anything else into our guitar bourbon, it wouldn't be considered bourbon. You can't put anything else Besides using just these pieces of wood cook it different ways to express different flavors out of the products in 2010 when we started that process with makers 46 It was relatively new and wine for a while. They were using that process, but it had never been used for bourbon or whiskey at all It's interesting what it does And number five we're going to try our summer 2020 this changes up a little bit So I have to look down at it. This one also comes out at cast strength as well So one ten point three so game point three proof and that maturation process now This is going to be a high on spice The spice is one of our states that we use Now if you like this one, it's very very similar to the cinnamon dolce shot Use the almost exact same state recipe as well All right, we got a special interview here with Johnny and we're at makers mark distillery And this is a fantastic place and Johnny's got all the history Tell them a little bit about yourself because you're not just a normal Makers mark employee. He's got a lot of history Absolutely, go ahead and tell the whole story of makers mark for everybody back home watching this video Well, I'll tell you as much as I know the first people who actually Settled here on this property with the Burks family in 1805 They originally granted grist mill and they weren't quite making enough money. So they moved over and built the distillery They said heck we're grinding up the grain. We might as well distill it So a lot of the pieces here we use today on property are actually originals from the 1800s Bill and Marjorie Samuels bought this property in 1953 for $35,000 now that is a steel. We have over a thousand acres of land And also in addition to that we have an 11 acre Limestone fed lake that we use for every part of our process as well That's pretty do it. Why do it? So this is one of the oldest operating if not the oldest right in Kentucky one of the oldest, correct? Yeah, I saw a Guinness Book of Records back in the office back there for the oldest operating in Kentucky America so with your parents tell us a little bit about what they do. So actually I was born in Spain interesting story I have a question now. Who are you rooting for today? Oh Yeah, but Spain went out because of Italy Give me a hard time Personal part of this story. I was born in Spain. My father sold white oak barrels for actual wine He moved over to the United States to sell more of those barrels to whiskey products So he sells the barrels and my mom sells those oak alternatives or evoke solutions That's what flavors or expresses the different things we like out of our fully matured makers Out of all the different makers what version of those five you like the best So there's two different groupings of our makers products. One is a journey and proof. Yeah, I'm increasing that proof You get a lot of different flavors. My favorite with that is makers 101 When it comes to using those staves toasted marshmallow private-select hell of a product And that it seems like it's just the higher you go up there like that one-on-one, it's very smooth Absolutely, absolutely smooth product there. So how would you differentiate? We'll leave this for all the viewers at the end How would you differentiate makers mark versus some of the other bourbons here in Kentucky? What makes it a better product? First of all, we're a weeded bourbon, which a lot of people enjoy The most important thing we do here is we eliminate every sort of process that creates a bitter aftertaste So from it starts from our roller mill to our cooking process everything we do here is to illuminate Basically, that was smooth flavors. That's what we're all about here. I Tell you thanks so much. Jenny. Appreciate it, sir And I tell you what, this has been one of the best tour guides, you know Thank you run into yeah, wherever we've traveled and we've traveled to 88 countries all over the world In fact, we're gonna have to get you on our team. So I would love it But I love the passion I loved even when you were tasting those whiskeys you could see you loved it as much as we did So I really appreciate it and thanks for being on how to have fun I Would like to end the video by thanking the makers mark Team for allowing how to have fun Outdoors film on site. We've been very fortunate with our YouTube channel So many different locations have allowed us to film and we really appreciate that We hope you loved the video. We had a great time all day Enjoyed putting the wax on our makers mark. You can see a leach a go in the town here We really had a lot of fun with this tour great tour guide great group of people at makers mark And next time you're down in Kentucky doing that bourbon trail Definitely hits makers mark and also check out some of our other videos that we've done on other distilleries and other wineries Please hit that subscribe button It means a lot to the channel and hit the like button and thank you so much for watching. I have fun out You