Maker’s Mark Wood Finishing Series “The Heart Release” Bourbon Review

Among the innumerable bourbon limited releases in recent years, the Maker’s Mark Wood Finishing Series was one I always personally enjoyed, but not necessarily one that seemed to generate a ton of whiskey geek fervor. To me, it seemed like a good way to harness one of the aspects that makes most Maker’s Mark special releases or Private Selections what they are–the secondary finishing on a combination of 10 newly charred staves–and develop new possibilities for that key component of their process. Each Wood Finishing Series release in the original sequence–FAE, BRT, BEP, etc–would create a new finishing stave to explore how much more the Maker’s profile could be tweaked with new twists on wood stave finishes. And that’s where the new Heart Release from Maker’s Mark departs from what the company had previously established.

See, the Wood Finishing Series seemingly came to an end in 2023 with the BEP release. It would have been natural to presume at the time that maybe the company was just running low on new profiles they could explore in the series, or that the new staves they were creating just weren’t giving the types of profiles they were looking for. But now we see the Wood Finishing Series name revived here in 2024 with The Heart Release, which the company is describing as the first expression in the “second chapter” of the overall series.

The odd thing about The Heart Release, though, is that it does not actually seem to be based around the development of a new stave for the secondary aging period, as in previous entries in the series. Rather, each release in the “second chapter” will be dedicated to different groups of Maker’s Mark employees. The Heart Release was the result of the brand asking its distillery team to “describe what they taste, smell and experience on the job,” and the resulting whiskey was then essentially engineered to fit the responses. So because of the crew’s feedback noting flavors such as caramel, pastry, maple and chocolate, the whiskey was treated in such a way as to attempt to highlight those aspects.

In practical terms, that meant the team at Maker’s chose to give this liquid a secondary aging on 10 newly charred French oak staves, with the batch split into two parts–one aged for an additional five weeks, and another aged for an additional nine weeks. The two parts were then blended equally. But this is where we run into an quandary of “Is this unique enough?” Because the existing Maker’s Mark 46 also has its secondary aging exclusively on newly charred French oak staves, and its cask strength variant is bottled around the same strength, at around the same price point. So where does that leave this new Wood Finishing Series entry? What differentiates this really, from Maker’s 46 Cask Strength? Without a newly developed stave profile, does this really have an identity of its own? Or does only the profile of the liquid itself really matter?

Regardless, at an MSRP of $75 it’s kind of hard for me to get too worked up about it–this is far enough below the outlandish heights that have now become part and parcel of the limited release whiskey world that I think they get some more leeway here. Still, it does make me question what exactly the rest of their plans are for this series, or if The Heart Release really should have carried the name of the Wood Finishing Series specifically.

Anyway. That’s enough dithering; time to actually taste this bottle.

On the nose, the first impression I’m getting here is of silky, bittersweet dark chocolate. This is deep and cocoa-y, with flourishes of dark stone fruit jam and seasoned, toasted oak. I’m getting some faint wood smoke hinting at the oaky roastiness, along with pleasant wood spice with cinnamon and a little ginger. That profile is brightened a bit by a little fresher impression of mint as well.

On the palate, this tends toward the roasty-sweet side of the spectrum, with lots of chocolate ganache and roasted coffee/mocha, along with maple syrup and a variety of very darkly caramelized sugars. Blackberry reduction gives a dark, cooked fruit component, topped with brown sugar cinnamon streusel, and chased by waves of oak baking spices. There’s just a little bit of roasty astringency holding things together, offset by moderate to high residual sweetness.

All in all? Really quite nice, a lovely and sweet Maker’s Mark profile highlighting some of its darker and sweeter impressions of caramelized sugar and baking spice. At this point, I think my takeaway here is that the marketing for the Wood Finishing Series has perhaps become a little on the muddled side as it enters this “second chapter,” but I certainly am not going to argue with the liquid in the bottle. On its own merits, this is one I would be very happy to stumble across and pick up, and that’s of course the most important thing.

Distillery: Maker’s Mark
City: Loretto, KY
Style: Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey
ABV: 55.85% (111.7 proof)
Availability: Limited, 750 ml bottles, $75 MSRP

Jim Vorel is a Paste staff writer and resident craft beer and spirits geek. You can follow him on Twitter for more drink writing.