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Maker's Mark Cellar Aged 2023: The Bourbon That Slows Time · Aussie Bourbon Lovers

• 0:00
  Not really a pop. More of a squeak and then like a, I don't know, like a reveal. But don't
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  worry because the liquid is much more grand than the sound. The acoustics don't align
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  with the liquid. No, what liquid are we drinking Dave? This is a Makers Marks Cellar Age 2023.
• 0:35
  I'm so excited. Today is 2026. Yeah. So we've had exhibited extraordinary constraint by
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  not popping it until, what, three years later. I know. It has been sitting there staring
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  at us and it's just so beautiful. The 2023 release of the Cellar Age is, especially because
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  it was the first one. Yeah, it was their first. There's a few other kind of interesting
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  like nuanced pieces of this, but let's enjoy it first. Cheers. I remember we were in Kentucky
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  when this happened. Was that a second trip to Kentucky? Okay. Yeah. Let's go with that.
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  The first one, the 2022 to Bourbon and Beyond. And then we discovered that there was lots
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  of fun bourbon adventures. And we went back to Makers Mark in 2023 and they had just released
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  it. They were talking about all the people who had camped out and waited on the farm
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  road leading up to the gates. So they get their hands on a bottle. But we didn't get
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  a bottle then. One, because I don't think they had any left when we visited Makers Mark.
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  But I tried it. Yeah, we tried it. Yeah. But two, we had a limited amount of stuff we could
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  actually bring back. And I cannot remember where we actually got this bottle, but you
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  told me. I can remember. You can remember. On that trip, sorry, wait, on the nose. Come
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  on. Let's quickly do this. Oh, yum. It's very, like, maple syrup. For me, that is absolutely,
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  that's Stroopwafels. That's the Dutch treat, which is like a thin waffle with a caramel
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  in the middle. Yeah. Straight up. There's no question for me. That's like cinnamon and
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  kind of spiced biscuity goodness with like a big chunky, sticky, caramelly thing that
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  I want to stick in a toaster and ruin the toaster because the caramel is going to drip
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  through to the bottom. I was instantly getting like breakfast waffles, like when you sit
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  there and get toasty waffles for breakfast and then put maple syrup all over top of them.
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  That's what, that's where it took me, Dave. This is, this is so good. And when we cracked
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  this the other night, I was having so much fun because it falls in this category for
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  me of there's this handful of whisky, like bourbons, that what I think of is like really
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  top shelf, you know, in this kind of crazy way, right, represent this value of it makes
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  sense to spend what seems like a lot on a whisky that is actually so good. Yeah. It's
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  good, but it's also special. I think that's part of, like, to me, this bottle, it's from
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  Maker's Mark, one of the first distilleries we ever went to over there. It's, um, you
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  know, a bourbon that we love. There's a lot of sentimental stuff, but the story behind,
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  like, the cellar age. I'm just talking, you and I have that, but I'm talking about like
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  someone who's going to try to look for like a really good bourbon. Oh yeah. But this is
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  a genuine, in my view, this is a genuine banger with really good value. I mean, the age or
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  whatever we're talking about in a sec, but like the, there's a couple of whiskies for
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  me and like a handful of whiskies that represent excellent value. You can definitely get them
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  in Australia. Yep. You know, not super easy, but you can get them and they're definitely
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  good ones to have on your shelf. Yeah. Yeah. And the incredible work that goes and like
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  the story that goes into making what's in that bottle. Yeah. It's amazing. The first
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  time I had it, so the, we did it, we did the tour at Maker's Mark, which is one of our
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  happy places. There's a handful of happy places we have and they're almost all in Kentucky.
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  I see you on that balcony and you had a cocktail and I had a neat pour of this. Yeah. And my
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  first kind of take was that, that I didn't love it in the first instance, but then you
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  kind of, as you warm up to it, it's like, oh, this is amazing. Yeah. The, it is the
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  first time that the age state of the whiskey and it's been aged longer. So can I bore everyone
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  with what the process is? And I know we've done the episode earlier with Dr. Blake Layfield,
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  who's kind of talked us through this thing. They do the first six years where it's a normal
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  Maker's barrel. Yep. And the juice is still normal Maker's. So there's nothing changed
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  there. Yeah. Same recipe, barrels in the, um, recouses doing all the same stuff that
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  normally would. Rotating from the top to bottom. All of that stays all the same. Then for this
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  particular one, they took 250 barrels. Well, this is the batch size. Yeah. And they put
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  them into their cellar. So they use dynamite to blow the cider out of that mountain, the
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  hill, and they created this limestone cave. You get to go into the cave and it's like
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  nice and cool and just filled with barrels. It is cool in there. So they age, they normally
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  age to 46 in there where they kind of do the finishing. And the idea is it's, it's not
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  quite refrigerated, but it's like, it's at such a cool temperature that the aging slows
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  down the process. The, you know, people who don't kind of, those playing at home, Kentucky
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  has crazy weather fluctuations, which makes the whiskey in the barrel kind of go through
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  the wood and that kind of moves it out of the wood really quickly, which is what gives
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  it the flavor from the wood and the char and the toast in the barrels. And so when you
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  take it out of that environment and put it into a cold environment that the whiskey is
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  not moving so rapidly through the wood because you can get to a point where you're over oak.
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  And so you do experience that with some whiskeys that are older.
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  You're aging it more without it going in and out of the barrels as fast. And so you're
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  not getting that extra oakiness that you can get on something that's quite aged.
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  So the true uniqueness in this one is literally on the label that it's aged in a cellar. First
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  six years is done traditionally, and then they put it into a cellar. And so the rest
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  of it. So in this particular one, 87% of the whiskeys aged 12 years, 13% of it's aged 11
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  years. And it's an annual release. They do this every year. And they release it every
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  year. So this is the 23, there's 24 and 25, and they'll do a 26 this year.
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  But to make us have been aging, cellar aging whiskey day for as long as we've been enjoying
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  whiskey. Sure. I've been enjoying whiskey longer than that.
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  Oh no, sorry. I should say, like I was saying, we've kind of been doing our trips to Kentucky
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  and starting podcast adventures and stuff for the last three years.
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  Oh, I see what you're saying. They've been releasing it for that long.
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  Yeah. Yeah. Releasing it for that long.
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  Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. We'll go with that. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a really cool expression
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  because you can get this extra age out of it. And here is this thing that I spoke about
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  a couple of weeks ago, which is that I got this fun new insight from a friend of ours
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  only recently. Yeah.
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  And I don't want to say too much that I'm not allowed to say, but I know that there
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  is some really good stuff still going to come from Maker's Mark down the road because when
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  they released this, everyone went, what's the oldest stuff you have? And I think Blake
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  kind of intimated this on the podcast is that people say, how old have you gotten? How good
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  does it get with how old it is? And I think he said with the 2025 release, it's like,
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  this is the oldest stuff we've got. We've put it in here. You're tasting the best old
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  stuff we've got. But the good news is what the seller can do and what they can kind of
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  blend and make from that. Everyone's getting to experience every year they release stuff
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  and there's more good stuff coming. But Makers, they're always experimenting on
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  what else could we do? They've got their 46 where they've added the staves in and then
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  they've got the cellar aged and they've done their Star Hill farm. I don't know, they're
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  constantly better and better and more amazing things. So I'm excited about where Maker's
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  Mark is going with whatever fun stuff is coming down the road.
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  There's this lovely richness to this as well, isn't there? It's like a lovely... I had a
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  mouthful there. I got a little bit of cherry Coke.
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  Yep.
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  Which is a weird thing to say about it. Whiskey with that cherry note that
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  everyone talks about with Makers. Beautiful sweetness and that cherriness.
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  I like the flavor stays in your mouth. Sometimes you kind of have it and then
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  it's gone and you have a bit more or is this... I wouldn't drink that as fast because the flavor
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  is still there. It stays that really delicious, rich...
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  Long finish.
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  Yeah. Long finish is the word I was looking for.
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  This one also feels like there's a real significant mouthfeel, like a sticky mouthfeel
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  that it has a substantialness to it.
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  Yeah. So I'm saying you don't want to drink it quickly because you'd miss out on all those
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  different flavors and the party that's happening in your mouth.
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  Is that part of what I'm... Yeah. Maybe that's part of what I'm saying about the value. It
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  feels like there's like a... It's more substantial than what some other whiskies that I really
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  enjoy have. Yeah.
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  Yeah. Yeah. It's easy and delightful to drink, but you don't want to drink quickly because
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  the flavor's changing. I love it. It just sits there.
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  One of my favorite influencers online, Bardstown native, the Bourbon Duchess.
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  Yes.
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  Whitney was on at Kentucky Bourbon Festival and interviewed people lining up for Cellar Age 2025.
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  Yeah.
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  And they were spending 45 minutes to an hour in the sun, standing in a line, waiting for this.
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  Worth the wait.
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  I hate queues. I really do.
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  Yes. He's not a queue...
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  It's not very much I'd queue up for.
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  I don't think there's anything much you'd queue up for, Dave.
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  Don't queue up for almost anything at all.
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  No.
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  Would you queue up for this?
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  Having tasted it now, probably, yeah, but it would depend on how long the queue was.
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  In the sun as well. I mean, it's pretty good. It's like a friendly environment.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  KBF.
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  It's fun. It's part of that you embrace being in the queue, but I wouldn't queue up. The reason
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  I don't queue up at KBF is because there's only three days that we've come all the way from
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  Australia. You want to get around as much. If you spend most of your day at a queue,
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  you're going to miss out on lots of stuff.
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  And then I suppose the other reason is we're very lucky that in Australia,
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  some of the stuff they're queuing up for for hours there, we can go down to Dan's and get.
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  And so I wouldn't queue up for this because I'm likely to come across it at an airport or a Dan's.
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  And this comes back to answer your question. Where did we get this bottle?
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  Dan's?
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  We got it at Judy Free, actually.
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  Oh.
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  It's interesting. And I'm lucky that I get to travel a bit for work. And so
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  I often walk past bottles of Celeraged at Judy Free at Melbourne Airport because that's where
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  you can get it. And people are walking past it because they don't know what it is.
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  Oh no.
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  And it's, you know, it's not 50 bucks and people are buying the 50 buck bottles or the two for
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  100 bucks or whatever it is. And they're not buying the slightly more expensive ones because
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  they don't know what it is.
• 11:42
  Well, yeah, it's like, you know it's a Makers Mark because it's got the red wax.
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  Well, do you? It doesn't say Makers Mark prominently on it.
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  But it's got the embossing and the red wax.
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  Well, you and I know this. Yeah, we know this stuff.
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  It would be sitting with all the Makers Mark stuff. But yeah, you're right. It's like you're
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  kind of looking at something you don't exactly know much about if you're not into it. See,
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  it does say Makers Mark on the side.
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  I know. You have to look for it, though, is what I'm saying.
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  You have to know.
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  And you have to know what it is. And you have to know that that's actually
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  bloody amazing. And if you're looking to make something with coke, I'd say maybe get the
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  cheaper one.
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  Oh, you can. But if you just want Makers and coke, that's a different thing.
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  Yeah. Drink it how you like it, they say.
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  Their loss is our gain in this particular instance.
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  Yeah. It's great.
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  If you're going through duty free and you've got some allowance, I'd say see if you can get
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  your hands on a bottle of Solarage. It's a genuine banger.
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  It's definitely worth the queue.
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  What? You don't have to queue with me. All right, never mind. Cheers.
• 12:40
  Cheers.