In celebration of its 50th Anniversary, LexArts was deeply honored to be selected to participate in the Maker’s Mark Private Selection program. Maker’s Mark® Private Selection is a first-of-its-kind barrel program. It allows select nonprofit organizations, as well as Maker’s Mark retail and restaurant partners, to craft a full barrel of bourbon by exploring their own taste visions of Maker’s Mark® – much in the way past-and-present Maker’s® distillers did, and still do today.

Maker’s Mark® Private Selection is a customized take on the Maker’s Mark 46® process and begins with cask-strength Maker’s Mark® as the base. Each barrel is specially fitted with 10 wood-finishing staves in their limestone cellar and aged for an additional nine weeks. Where Private Selection separates itself from Maker’s Mark 46® is barrel customization using five different stave types. This results in over 1,001 different possible combinations.  As single-barrel bourbons, all expressions of Maker’s Mark Private Selection® are bottled at cask strength – which ranges from 107-114 proof.

Before we knew what a Whisky Wall of Wonder was, the LexArts team, along with our friends from Baird Private Wealth Management and Keeneland (sponsors of the 50th Anniversary celebration), spent a full day at the Maker’s Mark distillery in Loretto creating the LexArts 50th Anniversary Artisan Blend. We swirled, sniffed, sipped, and spit, for a good half day. It’s a tough job, but someone had to do it. At the end of the day, our Maker’s Mark LexArts Artisan Blend was born. And there’s an official birth certificate to prove it.

READ MORE about the Whisky Wall of Wonder 1.0.