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How to Sell Individualized Whisky Barrels When All Your Whiskey is the Same

Barrel warehouse (2)Many bourbon producers allow bars/stores to buy individual barrels bottled specifically for the bar or liquor store. A representative selects from barrel samples from a particular distillery, then chooses the one they like best to bottle.

Maker's Mark has started offering this practice, but yet this brand goes to great length to make every barrel of its whiskey taste the same. 

Maker's Mark produces a single distillate in the distillery. Then they rotate their barrels in the rickhouse from hotter upper floors to cooler lower ones (to my knowledge no other major bourbon distillery does this), so that each barrel should taste about the same- or at least minimize differences between them.

Their products (the original, barrel strength, the Maker's 46) all start with the same barrel-aged stuff. For Maker's 46 they give it additional aging with some french oak staves in the barrel. 

So now Maker's Mark is offering a buy-your-own-barrel program, but the way they're doing it is unusual. They're allowing purchasers to choose from a selection of staves for additional maturation - the same way Maker's 46 is made but with a variety of woods.

From the press release:

As with Maker’s 46, Maker’s Mark Private Select will start with fully-matured Maker’s Mark straight out of the barrel. Participants will receive an in-depth immersion that illustrates the essential role that wood plays in the taste of bourbon, and will select their preferred combination of five types of wood staves with which to finish their custom Maker’s expression.

This collection of oak staves – each accentuating different flavors found in fully-matured Maker’s Mark – includes Baked American Pure 2, Seared French Cuvee, Maker’s 46, Roasted French Mocha, and Toasted French Spice. With 1,001 possible stave combinations, participants can create a customized finish and taste profile that is uniquely their own.

After aging for nine additional weeks in a single barrel with the participants’ custom stave combination, the Maker’s Mark Private Select bourbon will be bottled, corked and dipped at cask strength with details such as proof and stave combinations handwritten on the label.
Maker’s Mark Private Select Program will be available to Kentucky and Illinois based retailers in its first year and will be expanded to additional markets in 2016.

 

 Cool stuff.

 

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