Makers Mark Gets Lit for Christmas
Candlelight tours of historic distillery add sparkle to the holidays

You don’t have to be a bourbon fan to enjoy the holiday Candlelight Tours at Maker’s Mark Distillery. But if you happen to be one, you’ll want to skip that dreaded office party, chuck the stale fruitcake and head on down to the country.

“When I think of Christmas, I think of people gathering together for celebration with family and friends,” says Bill Samuels, Jr., master distiller and president of Maker’s Mark. “We consider (the tours) an opportunity for a closer relationship with our customers…It has always been a Samuels family tradition to open our home and share the holiday spirit with our friends. Our home just happens to be a distillery.”

And quite a picturesque one, at that. Imagine a charming 1850s Victorian village set on 700 pastoral acres in Marion County’s Happy Hollow and graced by a clear, limestone spring-fed lake. There’s a black tollhouse with rates still posted, a gray still house and frame fire station, a big black barrel warehouse, and teeny 1889 quart house thought to be America’s oldest remaining “retail whiskey store.” All have cherry red shutters and trim.

On a hill overlooking the distillery, the three-story original owner’s home stands, spruce green with pearly white “gingerbread.” Tiny Christmas lights twinkle from every imaginable corner, each window sports a wreath and candle, and holiday music wafts throughout. The distinct caramel scent of bourbon hangs sweet in the air.

A sturdy burnished red Victorian farmhouse welcomes visitors for a hot cup of cider, holiday bread and a guided tour of this historic distillery, famous the world over for its irreverent ads and red-dipped personality. In the still house, enormous cypress wood vats of steaming “porridge” will warm the winter chill right out of your cockles.

Here bourbon is still made the old-fashioned way.

Originally built in 1805 as a gristmill distillery, Maker’s Mark is the oldest distillery site currently in operation and a National Historic Landmark.

In 1780, the Samuels family whisky legacy began when Robert – great-great-great-great grandpa of Bill, Jr. – came to Kentucky as a farmer who made whisky for himself and his friends. Robert’s grandson, T.W., built the family’s first commercial distillery in 1840 and created its first brand of bourbon.

Abandoning the family recipe in the early 1950s, Bill, Sr. concocted a new one using locally grown corn, malted barley and red winter wheat, a product that gave the libation a much gentler taste than the rye it replaced.

In 1980 the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story about Maker’s Mark, turning world attention to a distillery near tiny Loretto, Kentucky, where they made whisky 19 barrels at a time, and where every part of the bourbon-making process was still done by hand, from moving aging barrels around the warehouse for even temperature exposure to dipping every bottle in its signature red wax. Maker’s Mark hit the charts.

These days, if you’re of legal drinking age, you can dip your own bottle of bourbon here and even personalize the label as a gift. Actually, there’s not much at the red-themed gift shop that hasn’t been dipped – t-shirts, jackets, Christmas ornaments et al.

“They all tease me here,” laughs Donna Nally, director of tourism public relations for Maker’s Mark. “Anything that stands still and is dippable, I’ll dip it!”

Good thing Santa’s already wearing red!

“Christmas is a nice time to come to the distillery,” says Samuels, “though we’re kind of hard to get to. You have to want to get here. Yet 60,000 visitors find us every year.”

Take the pilgrimage yourself. The free Saturday Candlelight Tours this year are on December 6 and 13 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

“Word of mouth about our beautiful decorations has brought more and more people here every year,” says Nally. “And when it snows, the whole place is gorgeous!”

For further information, call (502) 865-2009 or log onto www.makersmark.com .

Katherine Tandy Brown is a staff writer for The Lane Report.
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