Saturday, April 4, 2009

0061--Marker's Mark Distillery


Right down the road from Heaven Hill is the Maker's Mark Distillery (a much better stop). Took a great tour through the distillery, bottling, and aging facilities. Ron is shown with one of the actual vats of mash . . . which they weirdly encourage us to dip our fingers in and taste, telling us how to determine the age of the mash by taste (ours was at day two of the three-day process). Then, we went through one of the many barrel houses, where the bourbon is stored for 5.75 years (and rotated by hand) in charred oak barrels before being tasted to see if it's ready for bottling. If not, it may stay in storage for up to 7 years, until it's perfect. We also got to taste the raw, distilled bourbon-ready spirit (before aging). Trust me; stick with the aged stuff; they call the raw spirit "white dog" for a reason.

2 comments:

pinky said...

Yeah--bend over America and buy a Japanese car!!!!!

Michelle Perkins Kowalewski said...

Right on, Pinky!