More than 50 years ago, Kentucky distiller Bill Samuels, Sr., founder of Maker’s Mark, set out to make a better tasting bourbon whisky. What he discovered was that if you used winter wheat in the mash instead of the traditional distiller’s rye, your bourbon whisky was smoother and less bitter…and that’s made all the difference.

Maker’s mark is America’s only handmade bourbon whisky – never mass produced. Each individual batch is less than 19 barrels, and this small quantity means we can be choosy about everything we use and everything we do to craft our whisky.

That’s why we use the old-style sour-mash method. We start each new batch fermentation by using a little of the last, resulting in a more consistent product.