From Rob Samuels, Ambassador in Chief, Makers Mark Distillery:
Lots of folks don’t know this, but Maker’s Mark rotates every one of the barrels in our warehouse throughout the maturation process. While we know this isn’t the most efficient way to create whisky, we do believe it’s the only way to achieve optimal consistency of flavor for your favorite handmade bourbon. In fact, we believe Maker’s™ is the only distillery in the world that continues to hand-rotate bourbon barrels.
We have just produced a fun and informative video on our barrel-rotation process that explains why we do what we do and how we do it. It should give you a better understanding of our process, and it will definitely help you out when you’re spreading the good word about Maker’s Mark® to friends.
My grandfather, the founder of Maker’s Mark, referred to this and other steps in his process as “purposeful inefficiency.” To have a look for yourself, just touch or click on the link below: