I have advertised that I have been adopted by a group of heterosexual men who like to drink booze as much as I do and do hobbyist things like picking barrels of booze for our good friend, Bo Tran of Ryan’s Liquor. Typically when you pick a barrel you’re either sent samples or you go on site and sip the sweet nectar straight out the barrel’s ass. This past weekend we had the opportunity to participate in a “pick”, of sorts, for Maker’s Mark Private Select which was extremely unique and innovative.

I met said group at Jasper’s up in The Woodland’s where all the rich, white people and Indian doctors live. But not before my GPS took me to a grocery store and I said, “LMAO BRUH THIS AIN’T RIGHT” but I used my brain and got to the right place because I’m basically Lois and Clark. The explorers not the sex-starved 90s actors. Anyway there was a private room reserved and when I walked in it was set up very formally and seemed a bit stiff. I internally rolled my eyes because I was convinced that it was going to be dull and overly rehearsed BUT IT TURNS OUT I WAS WRONG AS FUCK!

Once everyone got seated we were greeted by the distributor rep about what was going to take place and then we were introduced to the Maker’s Mark Diplomat [tangent time - I’m horrible with names which is why I’m not giving credit to anyone soooo yeah] - who explained how the day would work. He, I assumed it was a he as he did not say otherwise and he looked like a fuckin’ guy so, warned us he would do the history of Maker’s Mark, the history of the private select program and then go over the barrel selection process. It was actually incredibly interesting and we learned lots, including the LAME ASS story behind Maker’s 46. But one of the best parts was the distributor rep started blessing us with appetizers - chips, salmon crackers, tortilla wraps and all sorts of other stuff. I put on Throw It Up by Lil’ Jon and Pastor Troy and we got NASTY with that food, y’all.

The part y’all care about is the selection process right? Ok so they have these things called staves that are pieces of wood that are created, cut and treated, much like dem fake boobies, and are inserted into bourbon barrels to give the liquid certain characteristics. There are five of these staves - Baked American Pure 2 (P2), Seared French Cuvee (Cu), Maker’s 46 (46), Roasted French Mocha (Mo) and Toasted French Spice (Sp) and the goal is to come up with an iteration of 10 “servings”, let’s call them, to create your private select. For example, you may say I want three P2, four Cu, one Mo and two Sp for my barrel and then the diplomat would mix em all up for us to try. To determine how we wanted it see the picture below - we used poker chips to set the combination of the staves on a stave poker chip holder.

So having the perfect palate that I do I was able to guide my group into the perfect combination on the first go…LMAOOOOO jk - sorta. The part I’m JK’ing about is the perfect palate part. What I’m not joking about is that we nailed it on the first go. We did six iterations but ultimately came back to number 1 because we are chosen by the Bourbon Gods.

The coolest part to me was we were able to see how many times that combination has been selected - turns out only once up in Michigan like two years ago. So basically it’s never be done because who gives a fuuuuuuu about Michigan. We are keeping the combination a secret until the release because well…it’s on the bottle. So yeah.

This was an absolutely fantastic experience that I was really blown away by. It made the whole thing feel like our tastes and opinions mattered versus being like, “Oh yeah all three of these samples suck pickle dick but sure I’ll pick the least tainty one.” This should hit sometime late fall so I’ll keep everyone up to date.

So from Ryan’s Taters please get excited for our 2nd bottle - “When Hershy Wet Cherry”

Cheers!

Maker's Mark Private Select Pick DAYYY!

— Bottles and boards —