BOTTLING MAKER’S MARK AMBASSADOR BOTTLES – On our families adventures down to Florida, one of my main goals was to stop at Maker’s Mark whiskey company in Loretto, Kentucky. Several years ago, actually a little over seven years ago, I signed up to be a member of the Maker’s Mark Ambassador club.
Membership is free, and with it, you get your name placed on a barrel of aging whiskey, and also receive annual gifts around Christmas time. Some of the gifts had little use, such as a Santa hat for a bottle of Maker’s Mark, but others were more creative, such as funny boxes to use as gifts (i.e. Kitty Dumbbells were a pretty good one to give).
Personally, I am not even much of a drinker, but the idea of getting a bottle that I “helped” age was pretty enticing.
My batch aged in March 2014, so we made it a point to stop and visit.
First, word of note to those that may not have been to Loretto. The distillery is in the middle of nowhere, far removed from the freeway, on curving roads with lots of hills. The terrain proved to be a little too much for younger bellies after a long day in the car driving.
However, it is quite impressive to arrive on the gorgeous Maker’s Mark property.
Once we entered the gift shop, we were directed to the purchasing desk. Prior to our arrival, we scheduled our visit so they would have our bottles ready. Ambassador members are able to purchase up to two bottles from their batch of whiskey. After paying for the purchase, we were able to create a custom label that we would hand apply to the bottles.
Then our family was escorted over to the waxing area. Upon outfitting myself with an apron, sleeve protectors, and gloves, I was then able to proceed up to the wax stage. Hold your bottle with four fingers on the front, one on the rear of the bottle, dip straight down into the wax several inches, remove the bottle, rotate bottle sideways, and rotate. Then as the wax drips down the bottle, my Ambassador stamp was placed on the top of the bottle.
The Ambassador bottling experience is really quite cool, and even for those who are not members, one can purchase a bottle at the gift shop and still wax seal it yourself. Regardless of whether you actually drink the whiskey or not, it is a pretty cool souvenir.
Upon arriving to the property, we realized, or at least thought we only had a couple minutes to complete the bottling process since we had reservations at Mammoth Caves later on. The problem was we did not realize the part of Kentucky we were in was on Central time, and we were used to Eastern Standard Time. Therefore, we rushed through the experience, letting the kids stretch their legs for a couple minutes, and then quickly loaded up the vehicle for the hour and a half drive to Mammoth Caves.
As it was, we thought we were going to be arriving right at the start of our tour. It was not until we got our tickets that we realized there was a time change, and we were actually an hour early.
The time change really made me rather sad we did not get to see the Maker’s Mark grounds, as there were lots of little buildings and things that looked great and worth while to see.
Have you been to the Maker’s Mark Distillery? What did we miss seeing?
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Source: InACents
