Maker’s Mark BRT-02
Maker’s Mark BRT-02
Cost: $100 for 750mL bottle at local liquor store (South Carolina)Age: NAS
Proof: 109.4
Mash Bill: 70% corn, 16% soft red winter wheat, 14% malted barley
Maker’s Mark is one of my favorite distillers. While their Wood Finishing Series came to a close in 2023 with the release of BEP, there were still 4 of the 6 expressions from this series that I haven’t been fortunate enough to try: RC6, SE4xPR5, BEP, and BRT-02. Considering the amount of time since some of these were released, I’ve been loosing faith in that I’ll get a chance to try all of them. However, I stumbled upon a local liquor store that had a lone bottle of BRT-02 for sale about a month ago! This is probably the single most expression from this series that I’ve been looking forward to trying. Let’s see if it lives up to my expectations.
Reviewed neat in a Glencairn.
Appearance: Tawny (1.4) in color; very oily looking leaving a beautiful ring at the peak of the swirl around the glass that very slowly makes fat, slow legs.
Nose: Right off the bat I feel like this is going to be dessert pour. Stewed, rich, red fruit, and plums are very dominant. I baked a butter pecan cake with buttercream frosting just the other day, and maybe it’s because that profile is recent, but I’m picking that up as a lighter note – a sort of nuttiness with vanilla and sweet cream. There’s also a somewhat bitter note that’s in the depths which…with all the sweetness, comes across as burnt sugar or molasses. There’s a light baking spice note in the depths of the nose as well that reminds me most of nutmeg.
Palate: While the nose was very sweet, the palate is much more balanced. There’s still a dominant sweetness, but the baking spice note is more prevalent than it was in the nose. I’m picking up vanilla and caramel with a nice berry mix of raspberries, blueberries, and cherries. There's a definite nutmeg note along with a little ethanol that enhances the bite of the spice. Just before the finish, or after a few seconds of rolling it around on the palate, I’m picking up on sweet oak and leather. This has a very oily mouth feel that really coats the palate nicely.
Finish: This has a long finish that highlights a bit more of the aging notes such as charred oak and leather. There’s still a sweetness that lingers coming across to me as caramel. I’m picking up the familiar warming, chest hug that I usually get from MM products. There is a slight tingly sensation left on the palate telling me this was a higher proof bourbon.
Rating: 8.1/10 on T8ke scale
Overall: This lived up to my expectations! It was a delicious pour. The nose was fantastically robust. However, that robustness fell off a little on the palate, and even a little more in the finish. On one hand, I really enjoyed the journey from the nose to the finish in which it was total dessert pour on the nose, then on the palate it was a bit more balanced, and then in the finish it highlighted more of the barrel, earthy notes. However, what I didn’t like about that journey is how there was a significant amount of flavor specificity of the notes on the nose and that complexity and quality dropped off a little bit as the sip progressed. (Also, don’t take this to mean I’m calling this a low quality product. I am not.)
I’m very happy with my purchase. While it would have been nice to get it at MSRP, it’s almost been 2 years since this bottle was released and it’s not being made any more, so I can justify that I’m not going to be able to get it at the MSRP today. The quality of this pour is worth the $100 I paid.
Behind the Bottle
I found this bottle at a local liquor store that I don’t go into real often because I find their pricing to just be all over the place: sometimes bargains, sometimes 4x MSRP. But I was in there the other day and hunting for a bottle of ECBP A124. No luck. I looked at a few other items and on my way out, I took a look on the shelves behind the counter, the “good stuff,” and tucked behind a couple JD bottles at the very end of the shelf I saw the familiar profile of the MM Wood Finish Series bottles. So, I asked the clerk what bottles they were. He came over and pulled them down and it was an FAE-01 and a BRT-02. I asked him how much for the BRT-02 and instead of telling me a price, he actually retorted, “Well what do you think is a fair price?” I kinda chuckled and said before we go down that route, I just want to know where his pricing was for this particular bottle to know if we’re even close to start negotiating. He was a totally honest guy and was like, “Well honestly, it’s priced at $200. But I know, and you know, that’s really high. But there are some people that will walk in and pay it without questioning it. So, really, what would you be willing to pay for it. I’m always just curious what individuals think is fair pricing.” In response to his honesty, I replied in kind and said, “Well 2 years ago it was going for about $60 MSRP. To be fair though, it’s not being made any more, so I could reason $80-$100.” He said, “That sounds reasonable. Hold on. Let me call the boss.”
He immediately pulls out his cell phone and calls someone. As he’s talking, I was clearly overhearing him talk to whoever was on the other end of the line and it was a strangely semi-intimate relationship with some terms of endearment. After he hung up, he was like, “So the boss, who is my wife (haha!) said she could do $125. But she said that’s the last bottle she has of BRT-02, and as a fan of Maker’s Mark, she kinda wants to keep if so she can have it when her current bottle runs dry.” I laughed and told the gentlemen that I appreciate the offer but really am not willing to pay that much for it.” He then countered and said, “I’ll tell you what, you seem like a nice guy and know what you’re looking for and are reasonable on pricing (I had asked him about a few other allocated bottles he had and made some comments on other prices both positive and negative), I’ll do the $100 for you. If she has a problem with it, she can take it out on me.” And just like that, I was able to get a bottle of BRT-02 in March of 2024 for $100. While I’m sure some will still scoff at this, I’m excited about that deal! This is a bottle that as a MM fan I’ve really wanted to try and not only do I have it to try, I got a whole bottle of it!
Now, the last thing I’ll share is this. If you’re not familiar with the Maker’s Mark Wood Finishing Series, there’s tons of info about it online, but I’ll share a couple facts and thoughts specifically about BRT-02. The BRT-01 and -02 bottles were released in 2022. BRT stands for “Barrel Rotation Temperature.” Now, if you’re not familiar with Maker’s Mark, they pride themselves on consistency, and they take it to the extreme! I’m talking 1 mash bill for 70+ years. They have been using the exact same yeast strain the entire time (and the yeast strain was a family one over 150 years old), they have used the same water source since the distillery started, and they rotate all their barrels by hand from the top of the rickhouse to the bottom to ensure all barrels are very similar in profile resulting in high consistency from batch to batch.
So, back to BRT, the “Barrel Rotation” part refers to that practice of rotating the barrels. Maker’s Mark states on the BRT bottles that the BRT-01 is intended to mimic the profile you would get from aging at the top of the rickhouse which experiences larger temperature swings and BRT-02 is intended to mimic the profile you would get from aging at the bottom of the rickhouse which is cooler year-round and doesn’t have as large of temperature swings. So now you know where BRT comes from: “Barrel Rotation Temperature.”
Also, something I always think about when I’m thinking about rickhouse level is humidity. The humidity is generally higher at bottom floors of the rickhouse. This is because they do generally stay at cooler temperatures, which means the relative humidity is higher since they aren’t controlled with HVAC systems. And when humidity is higher, this means that the ratio of alcohol evaporation to water evaporation inside the barrels will be higher (i.e. more alcohol will evaporate which means a lower proof in the barrels). For all the proof hounds out there, they may not like the sound of this. But the wonderful thing about this to me is that you get more robust flavor without the chance of blowing your palate out from heat. No matter how you look at it, lower proof at cask strength should mean that you get more distinguishable flavor without ethanol notes convoluting it, OR if the distiller does proof down the barrels before bottling, this means that to get from a lower proof cask strength to some arbitrary proof it will require less dilution than if the barrel was at a higher proof at cask strength (i.e. you get more robust flavor).
So, all that said, in my head I’ve always considered that BRT-02 must be better than BRT-01 for my palate because 1) I expect it to have a richer, darker, deeper flavor profile, and 2) I expect it to be less tannic and oaky since the lower rickhouse levels should be seeing less wood interaction than higher levels (one potential downside to this is less flavor in general moving from the wood to the distillate).
HOWEVER! I believe the BRT series simulates the profiles found at the different elevations of the rickhouse by using different wood staves for finishing. For BRT-01, American oak staves are used and in BRT-02, French oak staves are used… Now, I’ve not seen this confirmed anywhere by MM themselves, but by their very choice words in how they describe the BRT expressions, I’m like 95% confident in saying that BRT-01 and BRT-02 juice is still rotated from top to bottom levels just like all other MM, they’re simply using wood stave finishing to emulate what it would be like had it aged exclusively on the top or bottom levels.
In the end, this aspect is very frustrating because I almost feel like it’s a bit of a bait and swap. Just based on a couple sentences of what BRT expressions are, one would easily come to the conclusion that, clearly, BRT-01 was aged entirely on the upper levels of the rickhouse while BRT-02 was aged entirely on the lower levels. But that said, if they truly did emulate it correctly (we may never know) then sign me up for a bottle of that lower rickhouse goodness whenever they decide to make it a real deal and not just a simulation. Because this BRT-02 was damn tasty!
He immediately pulls out his cell phone and calls someone. As he’s talking, I was clearly overhearing him talk to whoever was on the other end of the line and it was a strangely semi-intimate relationship with some terms of endearment. After he hung up, he was like, “So the boss, who is my wife (haha!) said she could do $125. But she said that’s the last bottle she has of BRT-02, and as a fan of Maker’s Mark, she kinda wants to keep if so she can have it when her current bottle runs dry.” I laughed and told the gentlemen that I appreciate the offer but really am not willing to pay that much for it.” He then countered and said, “I’ll tell you what, you seem like a nice guy and know what you’re looking for and are reasonable on pricing (I had asked him about a few other allocated bottles he had and made some comments on other prices both positive and negative), I’ll do the $100 for you. If she has a problem with it, she can take it out on me.” And just like that, I was able to get a bottle of BRT-02 in March of 2024 for $100. While I’m sure some will still scoff at this, I’m excited about that deal! This is a bottle that as a MM fan I’ve really wanted to try and not only do I have it to try, I got a whole bottle of it!
Now, the last thing I’ll share is this. If you’re not familiar with the Maker’s Mark Wood Finishing Series, there’s tons of info about it online, but I’ll share a couple facts and thoughts specifically about BRT-02. The BRT-01 and -02 bottles were released in 2022. BRT stands for “Barrel Rotation Temperature.” Now, if you’re not familiar with Maker’s Mark, they pride themselves on consistency, and they take it to the extreme! I’m talking 1 mash bill for 70+ years. They have been using the exact same yeast strain the entire time (and the yeast strain was a family one over 150 years old), they have used the same water source since the distillery started, and they rotate all their barrels by hand from the top of the rickhouse to the bottom to ensure all barrels are very similar in profile resulting in high consistency from batch to batch.
So, back to BRT, the “Barrel Rotation” part refers to that practice of rotating the barrels. Maker’s Mark states on the BRT bottles that the BRT-01 is intended to mimic the profile you would get from aging at the top of the rickhouse which experiences larger temperature swings and BRT-02 is intended to mimic the profile you would get from aging at the bottom of the rickhouse which is cooler year-round and doesn’t have as large of temperature swings. So now you know where BRT comes from: “Barrel Rotation Temperature.”
Also, something I always think about when I’m thinking about rickhouse level is humidity. The humidity is generally higher at bottom floors of the rickhouse. This is because they do generally stay at cooler temperatures, which means the relative humidity is higher since they aren’t controlled with HVAC systems. And when humidity is higher, this means that the ratio of alcohol evaporation to water evaporation inside the barrels will be higher (i.e. more alcohol will evaporate which means a lower proof in the barrels). For all the proof hounds out there, they may not like the sound of this. But the wonderful thing about this to me is that you get more robust flavor without the chance of blowing your palate out from heat. No matter how you look at it, lower proof at cask strength should mean that you get more distinguishable flavor without ethanol notes convoluting it, OR if the distiller does proof down the barrels before bottling, this means that to get from a lower proof cask strength to some arbitrary proof it will require less dilution than if the barrel was at a higher proof at cask strength (i.e. you get more robust flavor).
So, all that said, in my head I’ve always considered that BRT-02 must be better than BRT-01 for my palate because 1) I expect it to have a richer, darker, deeper flavor profile, and 2) I expect it to be less tannic and oaky since the lower rickhouse levels should be seeing less wood interaction than higher levels (one potential downside to this is less flavor in general moving from the wood to the distillate).
HOWEVER! I believe the BRT series simulates the profiles found at the different elevations of the rickhouse by using different wood staves for finishing. For BRT-01, American oak staves are used and in BRT-02, French oak staves are used… Now, I’ve not seen this confirmed anywhere by MM themselves, but by their very choice words in how they describe the BRT expressions, I’m like 95% confident in saying that BRT-01 and BRT-02 juice is still rotated from top to bottom levels just like all other MM, they’re simply using wood stave finishing to emulate what it would be like had it aged exclusively on the top or bottom levels.
In the end, this aspect is very frustrating because I almost feel like it’s a bit of a bait and swap. Just based on a couple sentences of what BRT expressions are, one would easily come to the conclusion that, clearly, BRT-01 was aged entirely on the upper levels of the rickhouse while BRT-02 was aged entirely on the lower levels. But that said, if they truly did emulate it correctly (we may never know) then sign me up for a bottle of that lower rickhouse goodness whenever they decide to make it a real deal and not just a simulation. Because this BRT-02 was damn tasty!
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