My friends! It’s time for another liquor store find from my recent travels. I saw this one all over Kentucky, but haven’t run across it here in Minnesota yet. That doesn’t really mean much, though—I haven’t been to the liquor store locally for a few months now. That said, I bought this one at Illinois’ Binny’s Beverage on the way home after passing on it a couple of times at various locations in Kentucky. Why did I pass? No idea. Must have found something that struck my fancy more at that particular moment.
So what are we talking about? That would be the latest release in Maker’s Mark’s Wood Finishing Series. They’ve been doing this for a while now. I saw emails in my inbox about the series going back to 2021—though they’ve highlighted different things over the years. The 2024 and 2025 releases focused on the people who help make the product what it is. According to the press release:
“The Keepers Release was born from our close collaboration with the Maker’s Mark warehouse team, the guardians of our barrels,” said Dr. Blake Layfield, master distiller, Maker’s Mark. Their sensory experience of Maker's Mark is unlike anyone else’s — the aromatic oak at different times of the day, evolving tasting notes of our whisky as it ages over multiple seasons — which provided inspiration and helped us shape the flavors of this release."
Adding to that statement, according to reporting by The Bourbon Review, this expression starts with fully matured, cask-strength Maker’s Mark aged six to seven years, then finished in two batches with toasted American oak staves—one batch aged an additional five weeks, the other nine—before being blended in equal parts and bottled at 109.2 proof (54.6% ABV).
So let’s get to the important part: how does it taste?
Maker’s Mark Wood Finishing Series: The Keepers Release 2025
Purchase Info: $79.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Binny’s Beverage Depot, Bloomington, IL.
Price per Drink (50 mL): $5.33
Details: 54.6% ABV
Nose: Vanilla, toffee, oak lumber, cinnamon, and a hint of mint.
Mouth: Almond, oak, mint, cinnamon, vanilla, and caramel.
Finish: Medium in length and warmth. Notes of almond, cinnamon, mint, and oak.
Thoughts: This is very good. Nice toffee. Lots of oak—though to me, it doesn’t quite come through as the usual oak notes you’d find in a bottle of bourbon. This oak feels more like the kind you'd find in your lumber pile (you do have a lumber pile of old wood, don’t you? Just me?). But while I might have expected that to be a bad thing, it actually works really well here. It plays nicely with an almond note that trends toward cherry. Big fan of this.
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