Maker's Mark 46

The Last No-Nonsense American Whiskey

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Before starting the Maker's Mark distillery in 1954, Bill Samuels Sr. decided to try his hand at banking. Luckily for us, his commercial bank made the record books as the first bank in America to open and close in 60 days. After the bank closed, his wife convinced him to get back into the family business of making bourbon.

Samuels revolutionized the bourbon industry by moving away from "cowboy whiskey" and bringing bourbon and good taste together for the first time. Rob Samuels, the current COO of Maker's Mark, is continuing the family tradition of making what he considers the most handmade whiskey in the world. Given that the global market for bourbon and whiskey in general is exploding, how does Maker's Mark continue to do what it does? We sat down with Rob Samuels to discuss the state of no-nonsense Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey today.

AskMen: It seems like the term handmade gets thrown around a lot. What does it mean?



Rob Samuels: What it means to us is people. I've been to distilleries that make a hell of a lot more than we do, that have one person in a room, pushing buttons, making whiskey on a computer. The average distillery produces 250 barrels per batch. Maker's Mark is produced 18 or 19 barrels per batch, which is the smallest batch size of any whiskey made from any distillery in the world. We have a tasting panel which is made up of 15 individuals. Nine women, six men. Each batch is tasted on average five times by the tasting panel. They taste off the still. They taste through the aging. We bottle to taste.

There have been some recent issues with bourbon shortages over the past few years, for example with Pappy Van Winkle. Is that something that Maker's Mark has had to deal with?

We've had more demand than supply for a long time. What's happened is the gap between supply and demand is much wider than it's ever been.

Has trying to meet that demand changed the way that you operate?

Fifteen years ago we expanded. The way most companies expand is, be more efficient, scale up and reduce cost. At Maker's, we built another distillery exactly like the one we have. It's a mirror image. It's right behind the original. We have plans to build a third. It takes eighteen months to build a distillery. Then you have to put those first barrels in the warehouse. We age on average six and a half years.

Since this increase in demand, are there big emerging bourbon markets internationally right now?

We get a lot more orders internationally than we can accept. Prior to my father retiring, I was leading all the global marketing for Maker's Mark, and we've had the same philosophies since the beginning. One customer at a time. Only talk to people that are interested. I've been to Moscow, Cape Town, Paris; and when we take the time to share the heart and soul of this brand, people respond to it just like in New York or Kentucky.

That seems like a very old-fashioned way of doing business.

You know what it was? The founder — that's the only way he would do it. He was not a marketer. We've been with the same agency in Louisville for 45 years. If he was ever in a meeting with them, and they started shifting to traditional marketing, he would excuse himself from the meeting and not come back. That was his way. He was such a Southern gentleman. He was too polite.