Maker's Mark Private Selection Womstead Barrel Finished Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey (2022) 75cl

1 of 246 bottles drawn from a single hybrid cask.

This will be the most comprehensive write up of Maker's Mark Private Selection that you see.

Private Selection Info: The program kicked off in limited release in November 2015, with bottled product available for sale by retail participants in March 2016. Participants will receive an in-depth immersion that illustrates the essential role that wood plays in the taste of bourbon, the company says, and will select their preferred combination of five types of wood staves with which to finish their custom expression. The initial collection of oak staves includes Baked American Pure 2, Seared French Cuvee, Maker’s 46, Roasted French Mocha, and Toasted French Spice. There are 1,001 possible stave combinations. After aging for nine additional weeks in a single barrel with the participants’ custom stave combination, the bourbon will be bottled, corked and dipped at cask strength, with details such as proof and stave combinations handwritten on the label.

Age of Maker's Mark Private Selection: 5.75 to 7 years old, plus additional finishing of 9 weeks in cold conditions in barrels with chosen combination of staves. It is Cask Strength (108–114)

Mashbill: Composition: 70% corn, 16% wheat, 14% barley

The Selection Process: Beginning as fully matured Maker's Mark® at cask strength, Private Selection is created by adding 10 custom wood finishing staves to each barrel. Then it's aged in their limestone cellar to extract a unique, flavorful taste profile. Participants in this special barrel program get to select their choice 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 Selection has a customized finish and taste profile that is unique.

The Five Stave Profiles of MM Private Selection: There are 5 staves. Virgin American oak and French oak are the woods of choice for Private Selection finishing staves. NOTE: The Mo (Roasted French Mocha) stave has been replaced by the Mn (Roasted French Mendiant) stave as of Feb 2021.

1) Baked American Pure 2 (BP): Baked American Pure is American oak that's slowly toasted. BP, or Baked American Pure, is made from American oak and is the first stave sampled in the program. It adds notes of brown sugar, vanilla, caramel and spice.

2) Seared French Cuvée (Cu): Next in order is Cu, also known as Seared French Cuvée. Cu is made from French oak that's ridge-cut and seared with infrared heat. It imparts toasty notes of oak and caramel.

3) Makers 46 Stave (46): The Maker's Mark 46 stave is the one that started this whole experiment. It's made from seared French oak and delivers dried fruit, vanilla and spice. A barrel fitted with 10 of these staves would give you a cask-strength version of Maker's Mark 46.

4a) Roasted French Mocha (Mo)(discontinued Feb 2021): Roasted French Mocha is French oak cooked on high in a convection oven. It adds pleasant traces of coffee, maple and cacao. NOTE: The Mocha stave is archived as of February 2021 and not avaiable for new recipes. Any existing participants of the Maker’s Mark Private Selection who have previously used Mocha in their recipe will be able to recreate that recipe, however any new recipes will not have access to this.

4b) Roasted French Mendiant (Mn) (began Feb 2021): Roasted French Mendiant is French oak cooked on low in a convection oven. It adds pleasant traces of milk chocolate, nuts, and dried dark fruit.

5) Toasted French Spice (Sp): Toasted French Spice is a French oak stave, toasted at first high heat then at low temperatures in a convection oven. This stave has a flavor profile of smoke, coumarin and spice.

About Maker's Mark

Taylor William "Bill" Samuels Snr started out in the whiskey industry at his family's T.W. Samuels distillery in the 1930s. When his father, Lesley Samuels, died in 1936, Bill inherited the running of the place, which he did so until 1942 when he sold it and its brands to Country Distillers Products. Bill has initially intended to retire to his farm, but the allure of creating a new bourbon proved too much, and he set about canvassing help in producing the recipe for the smoothers tasting whiskey that he has campaigned for and failed to get the family to distil over a decade prior. Among those who he reached out to were Hap Motlow of Jack Daniel's, Ed Shapira of Heaven Hill, and the legendary Julian 'Pappy' Van Winkle I. Pappy's wheated Old Weller and Old Fitzgerald bourbon were exactly the profile that Samuels was after, and with Van Winkle's help, he debuted finessed his own wheat mashbill, and bought land in Loretto, Kentucky in 1953. He filled his first barrels the following year, and in the years that preceded his first bottlings, Bill's wife Margie created the Maker's Mark brand based on her collections of fine English pewter stamps. The first bottle of Maker's Mark was bottled on 8th May 1958, and was hand-dipped with red wax, as all bottles still are to this day.

54.4% ABV

75cl