Maker’s Mark The Lost Recipe Series Edition #01
Maker’s Mark The Lost Recipe Series Edition #01
COST: ~$60 for 700mL bottle (I’m reviewing a sample) 
AGE: NAS
MASH BILL: 70% corn, 16% wheat, 14% malted barley
PROOF: 111.9
Was it just me or was this release by Maker’s Mark completely out of the blue? I don’t think I saw a press release or anything about it before I all of a sudden started seeing people post reviews of this expression. I figured The Heart Release and Cellar Aged 2024 were the only limited release expressions from MM that we would see this year, so I was definitely caught by surprise when I saw this one (pleasantly surprised). I figured there was probably no way I would ever find a bottle of this locally, so I took my first opportunity to get a sample of it from a fellow enthusiast! Let’s get to it!
APPEARANCE: Tawny (1.4) in color, with fast, medium sized legs at first and some slower, very viscous, but thin legs a good 30 seconds after swirling this.
NOSE: Truck loads of brown sugar and a mix of toasted notes such as toasted vanilla, toasted coconut, and roasted cocoa nibs (with prominence in that order). There’s a light dark fruit sweetness, kinda like sticky, dried figs, ripe raspberry, and maybe even a touch of blackberry. There’s a light pepperiness that accompanies damp oak.
PALATE: I usually find some sort of pastry note in Maker’s Mark expressions, and this didn't disappoint! Buttered pie crust with a cinnamon sugar sprinkling hit me right away. A toasted vanilla buttercream frosting is front and center and squeezed between notes of heavy charred oak and milk chocolate. The baking spice is more pronounced as allspice and a anise. With a good chew, there’s a rich cherry note. As far as the mouthfeel, this is soft on the palate and a little creamy, that said however, this is one of the thinner limited release Maker’s Mark expressions I’ve had.
FINISH: This has a medium to long finish with zero hug. The spice and oak linger the longest with notes of allspice, white pepper, charred oak, and Ethiopian coffee. There is a subtle sweetness that reappears with notes of vanilla bean and milk chocolate. There’s a slight tingle left on the back of my throat indicating the higher proof.
RATING: 7.3/10
VALUE: 8.7/10 (this value is based on a ratio of the $/mL to the rating above compared to this same ratio for all other r/Bourbon reviews I’ve made and normalized to 10)
OVERALL: Maker’s Mark absolutely slays when it comes to value ratings. Their limited release expressions are always priced very well most places and bring fairly complex, almost dessert like profiles. This is no different. The amount of brown sugar and vanilla that I get throughout this sip is phenomenal! And maybe it’s “preconditioning,” but that mocha stave brings nice toasty, roasty, chocolatey notes.
I felt like the sip kinda died off going through it with a banger nose, a little weaker palate with it being thinner than other MM limited releases (memory recall), and the finish being even weaker. I wished the sweetness in the finish was a little more prominent and in general the finish lasted longer. I’m also not a fan of Ethiopian coffee beans (that combination of berry sweetness and roasted cocoa that I get in Ethiopian beans just doesn’t resonate with me), and that is what I picked up during the finish which just didn’t sit well with me.
Overall though, I’d buy this bottle without hesitation if I saw it in a store for around MSRP. It’s still a fantastic pour for the value.
BEHIND THE BOTTLE
The Maker’s Mark Lost Recipe Series is a “spinoff” of their Private Select program; to understand the Lost Recipe Series you need to understand their wood finishing process and their Private Select Program.
In 2016, Maker’s Mark started experimenting with wood stave finishing and introduced the Maker’s Mark Private Select Barrel program. In this, they would allow customers interested in purchasing a barrel to finish their barrel for a few months with a custom combination of wood staves to offer unique flavor expressions. In this process, they would take regular fully matured MM barrels at the end of normal aging, open up the barrels and add in 10 virgin staves chosen by the customer for a few months to impart a unique flavor profiles. The original 5 stave options were:
- Baked American Pure 2
- Seared French Cuvee
- Maker’s 46
- Roasted French Mocha
- Toasted French Spice
So, fast forward to 2024 and the Lost Recipe Series. Maker’s Mark has tracked the stave combinations used over the years and has seemingly identified a short(?) list of stave combinations that have never been used before with they're retired staves. So Maker’s Mark is now releasing those never used stave combinations as part of the Lost Recipe Series. To start things off, they are using the retired Roasted French Mocha stave.
The Mocha stave was one of the most popular staves and there was a general disappointment when it was replaced with the Mendiant stave. But the general whiskey nerd consensus was this was a marketing move for the future (i.e. RETURN OF THE MOCHA STAVE!). Well, the people who guessed that were correct. The name of the game in 2024 for Maker’s Mark seems to be returning things they “ended” that people loved in the past: the Wood Finishing Series was brought back a year after it was “finished,” and now the Mocha stave has returned 3 years after it was “retired” as part of the Lost Recipe Series.
At any rate, Lost Recipe Series Edition #01 uses 1 Baked American Pure 2 stave, 3 Seared French Cuvee staves, and 6 Roasted French Mocha staves. MM describes this combination as bringing notes of dark chocolate, buttery pastry, and baked apple. Pretty spot on if you ask me, although I didn't quite get that apple note, all the components were there.
Since I wasn't documenting the different whiskeys I tried before 2021, I'm not certain I ever tried a MM expression that used the Roasted French Mocha staves. Based on this expression though, I'm looking forward to some more Lost Recipe Series editions that use the Roasted French Mocha staves! It'll be interesting to see what frequency and how many editions of the Lost Recipe Series Maker’s Mark releases considering it seems like their plan is to just drop these without any notice. (Honestly, I kinda like that though. It gives me a sense of feeding their core audience more than trying to tap into a broader market.)
1 | Disgusting | ...I've not subjected myself to this level
2 | Poor | Balcones Lineage
3 | Bad | High West Double Rye, Jefferson's Ocean 28
4 | Sub-par | Weller's SR, Woodford Reserve Distiller's Select
5 | Good | Buffalo Trace, Sazerac Rye, Green River Wheated
6 | Very Good | Blanton's, Holladay Bourbons, Eagle Rare
7 | Great | Baker's 7yr SiB, PiggyBack SiB, 1792 BiB
8 | Excellent | Most ECBP batches, JD SiB BiB, High West MWND Act 11
9 | Incredible | Barrel Bourbon Batch T8ke, BBC DS #7, Four Roses OESQ
10 | Perfect | Found North Batch 08
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