Maker’s Mark has announced their latest releases in its Wood Finishing Series. This will be the third and fourth additions in the series. Like the previous releases, they start with fully matured cask strength Maker’s Mark bourbon. Then it goes through a secondary finishing process. The secondary barrel aging is where the magic happens for this special bourbon. The barrels use different wood staves or charring styles to bring out unique characteristics in the bourbon. In a news release from Jane Bowie (the director of innovation at Maker’s Mark) said: “Every whisky in our Wood Finishing Series is meant to have a strong point of view; it should tell a story about what we do at the distillery. For 2021 we wanted to use wood to draw out those underlying bold qualities of classic Maker’s that we get from non-chill filtration — heavy oaky-ness, earthy fig, and that creamy, palate-coating mouthfeel. The more we experimented with different stave types, the more we realized one bourbon wouldn’t even scratch the surface of big flavor and texture, so we’re excited to share a pair of releases that tell two sides of a complete story.”
For the special secondary aging process for the FAE-01 release, Maker’s Mark only seared the American Oak stave on one side. This process left the other side in raw wood form. Maker’s Mark FAE-01 will be available this March 2021. FAE-01 is bottled between an exact range of 110.3-110.6 proof. The 750-ml size bottle has an MSRP of $59.99.
There will be another new release in this series this year, called the FAE-02. The second release is tentatively scheduled for the fall of 2021. Maker’s is saying that the FAE-02 will be more focused on a rich and weighty textured style of bourbon.