Maker's Mark Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey - 70cl
Maker's Mark Wood Finishing Series Singapore Limited Release Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky - 70cl
Maker's Mark Bourbon
The original wheated bourbon — founded 1953 by Bill Samuels Sr. at Star Hill Farm in Loretto, Kentucky, the oldest continuously operating bourbon distillery on its original site. Soft, sweet and rounded, made with red winter wheat instead of rye, sealed with the iconic hand-dipped red wax designed by Margie Samuels in 1958. Now part of Suntory Global Spirits — sister to Yamazaki, Hibiki, Hakushu and Courvoisier. The flagship 70cl and the rare Wood Finishing Series Singapore Edition (720 bottles worldwide) — delivered free across Singapore.
Buy Maker's Mark Bourbon in Singapore
The Liquid Collection stocks Maker's Mark in Singapore — including the iconic flagship Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky in its hand-dipped red wax bottle, and the rare Wood Finishing Series Singapore Limited Release, a Changi Airport-exclusive expression limited to just 720 bottles worldwide. Maker's Mark is the original wheated bourbon — soft, sweet, rounded, made with red winter wheat instead of rye — and is now part of Suntory Global Spirits, alongside Yamazaki, Hibiki, Hakushu and Courvoisier.
Every bottle ships free across Singapore with no minimum order. Browse the range above, or explore the wider American Whiskey category, compare with Kentucky single barrel bourbon at Blanton's or Tennessee whiskey at Jack Daniel's, or explore our wider Whisky selection.
The original wheated bourbon
In the early 1950s, T. William "Bill" Samuels Sr. — a sixth-generation Kentucky distiller whose family had been making whiskey since 1783 — decided he wanted to make a bourbon that he would actually enjoy drinking himself. The bourbons of the era were dominated by harsh, rye-heavy mash bills that prioritised volume and shelf life over drinkability. Bill's response was, in the brand's now-famous origin story, to symbolically burn the family's century-old whiskey recipe in his kitchen and start over from first principles. Working with bread loaves baked from different grain combinations to test which gave the softest, sweetest profile, he arrived at a recipe that substituted soft red winter wheat for rye as the secondary grain. The result was the original wheated bourbon — softer, sweeter, more rounded, more gently flavoured than anything else on the Kentucky bourbon shelf in 1953.
The new bourbon launched in 1958, by which time Bill's wife Margie Samuels had become its foundational creative partner. Margie designed the bottle. Margie designed the label. Margie chose the name "Maker's Mark," after the maker's marks she collected on pewter pieces in the family's antique pewter collection. And Margie designed and hand-developed the iconic red wax seal that has been on every bottle of Maker's Mark since 1958 — experimenting in her own kitchen with various waxes until she found one that would dip cleanly. Margie Samuels was inducted into the Bourbon Hall of Fame in 2014, the first woman to receive the honour, in formal recognition of how foundational she was to the brand. Today, every bottle of Maker's Mark — including the highest-end limited editions — is still hand-dipped in red wax at the Loretto distillery.
Why Maker's Mark — wheated bourbon and the Suntory connection
The wheated bourbon thesis
US bourbon law requires a mash bill of at least 51% corn; beyond that, the distiller chooses the secondary grain. Kentucky's overwhelming standard has been rye — a flavourful, spicy grain that gives bourbons their characteristic cinnamon, clove and pepper backbone. Bill Samuels Sr. went the other way. The Maker's Mark mash bill is approximately 70% corn, 16% red winter wheat, 14% malted barley — wheat replacing rye entirely. Wheat is a softer, gentler grain; instead of spicy backbone, it contributes bread-and-vanilla notes, gentler body, and a sweeter overall profile. This is what wheated bourbon means in technical terms, and the difference is genuinely striking on the palate. Wheated bourbon is genuinely rare in mass-market American whiskey: the major examples are Maker's Mark (the global reference and the most consistent supply), W.L. Weller (made at Buffalo Trace, sister to Blanton's), and Pappy Van Winkle (the same wheated mash bill as Weller, longer aged, made in joint arrangement with the Van Winkle family). Within wheated bourbon, Maker's Mark is the gateway and the benchmark.
The Cognac-and-whisky house in Suntory's portfolio
Maker's Mark has been part of Suntory Global Spirits since 2014, when the Japanese drinks giant Suntory acquired Beam Inc. (which had owned Maker's Mark since 1981, after acquiring it from Hiram Walker). This places Maker's Mark in the same corporate family as the great Japanese single malts — Yamazaki, Hibiki and Hakushu — and as Courvoisier Cognac, the only Cognac house owned by a Japanese spirits group. Sister brands within Suntory Global Spirits also include Jim Beam, Knob Creek and Booker's Kentucky bourbons, Laphroaig, Bowmore and Auchentoshan Scotch single malts, Hornitos and Sauza tequilas, and Roku Japanese gin. Maker's Mark is operationally still run by the Samuels family — Rob Samuels, the founder's grandson, is Chief Distillery Officer — and the Suntory ownership has preserved the brand's character while enabling distinctive innovations like the Wood Finishing Series.
The Maker's Mark house style
Across the range, Maker's Mark is defined by the soft, sweet, rounded character that comes from wheated mash bill. The signature notes are recognisable. The flagship Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky offers woody oak, caramel, vanilla and wheat on the nose; sweet and balanced palate with caramel, vanilla and fruity essences; smooth, subtle finish. Bottled at 45% ABV. Where rye-driven bourbons like Blanton's wear their high-rye spice signature loudly, Maker's Mark wears its wheat softly — leading with bread-and-vanilla rather than cinnamon-and-pepper. This makes Maker's Mark unusually approachable: it is the first bourbon many drinkers genuinely enjoy neat, the bourbon often recommended to wine drinkers exploring spirits, and a workhorse of premium classic cocktails (the Old Fashioned, the Manhattan, the Mint Julep) where its softness allows other ingredients to balance.
The Wood Finishing Series — first introduced in 2010 with Maker's Mark 46, and now extended into limited editions and the global travel retail Wood Finishing City Series — takes fully matured cask-strength Maker's Mark, places it in a second barrel with a custom selection of cooked oak staves, and rests it in the limestone bourbon cellar to develop new flavour profiles. The technique uses staves rather than full casks, allowing far more precise control of flavour development than traditional Scotch single malt cask finishing. The Singapore Edition stocked at TLC is one of the most distinctive expressions of this technique ever released.
The Maker's Mark range
The Wood Finishing Series Singapore Edition — 720 bottles, made for this city
Of all the Maker's Mark expressions ever released, few have a more directly Singaporean story than the Wood Finishing Series Singapore Edition. Released in 2024 as the fourth instalment in the brand's Wood Finishing City Series — following New York (2022), Sydney (2022) and Frankfurt (2023) — the Singapore Edition was developed in collaboration with two Singapore-based culinary tastemakers: chef and restaurateur Willin Low, named one of Singapore's best chefs by the Financial Times in 2009 and founder of the Wild Rocket and Roketto Izakaya restaurants; and Aki Eguchi, Bar Director at Jigger & Pony, one of Asia's most-acclaimed cocktail bars and a fixture on the World's 50 Best Bars list.
To craft the expression, fully matured cask-strength Maker's Mark was placed in a second barrel with a custom selection of ten virgin oak staves, each cooked and toasted to specific levels designed by Low and Eguchi to evoke Singapore's tropical character. The barrels rested in the Maker's Mark limestone bourbon cellar, allowing the cask-strength bourbon to interact with the staves and develop the distinctive Singapore flavour profile: aromatic notes of pineapple and mango, layered with warming spice — nutmeg, clove and cinnamon. The bourbon was bottled at the cask strength of 54.9% ABV. Total production was just 720 bottles worldwide, sold exclusively through Lotte Duty Free at Singapore's Changi Airport Terminal 4. The release sold out at retail, and the Singapore Edition has since become one of the most sought-after pieces in the entire Maker's Mark Wood Finishing City Series — a genuine Singapore travel-retail collectible. The Liquid Collection's allocation is one of the few channels in Singapore stocking the bottle outside the airport itself.
Margie Samuels and the women of Maker's Mark
One of the most important and most underrated stories in modern bourbon is the story of Margie Samuels — the wife of founder Bill Samuels Sr. and the genuine creative architect of Maker's Mark as a brand. While Bill led the technical decision to substitute wheat for rye in the mash bill, Margie made every other defining choice that turned a regional Kentucky bourbon into a global icon. She designed the bottle shape — the squat, hand-thrown glass form with the long neck. She designed the label — the hand-printed, deliberately old-fashioned typography. She chose the name — "Maker's Mark," drawn from the maker's marks she collected on her antique pewter pieces. And most famously, she designed and hand-developed the red wax dipping process, experimenting in her own kitchen with various waxes until she found one that would dip cleanly and seal completely. The wax-dipping has been done by hand at the Loretto distillery, on every bottle, ever since.
Margie Samuels was inducted into the Bourbon Hall of Fame in 2014 — the first woman to receive the honour. Her recognition was overdue by several decades. Margie's role at Maker's Mark established a pattern that has continued at the distillery to this day: the brand has been unusually prominent in elevating women within the American bourbon industry, including in production, master distillation and senior leadership roles. Today the Samuels family's involvement continues into a third generation through Bill Samuels Sr.'s grandson Rob Samuels (Chief Distillery Officer), but the brand also tells the Margie story openly as part of its identity. Few bourbon brands have a co-founder's wife as central to their identity as Maker's Mark does, and the recognition is genuinely earned.
Star Hill Farm — the oldest bourbon distillery on its original site
Maker's Mark is made at Star Hill Farm in Loretto, Kentucky — about an hour southwest of Louisville in Marion County, deep in the heart of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. The site has been making whiskey since 1805, when it was established as Burks' Distillery — making it the oldest continuously operating bourbon distillery in the United States on its original site. Bill Samuels Sr. acquired the distillery in 1953 to launch Maker's Mark, and the operation has been there ever since. The distillery is recognised as a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service — the only working distillery in the world with that designation — and the site is one of the most-visited destinations on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. The distillery uses limestone-filtered water from a private spring on the property, ferments in cypress wood fermenters, distils in a traditional copper column-still-and-doubler setup, and famously rotates its barrels by hand throughout maturation to ensure even development across the rickhouse — a labour-intensive practice that most large-scale bourbon distilleries abandoned decades ago. The hand-dipped red wax bottling is also done on-site at Loretto, by a dedicated team of bottlers, on every bottle that leaves the distillery.
Maker's Mark and the wider bourbon picture
Among the great Kentucky bourbon houses, Maker's Mark occupies a particular position. Blanton's (1984, Buffalo Trace, Mash Bill #2 high-rye) is the bourbon that invented the premium single barrel category. Pappy Van Winkle (Buffalo Trace, wheated mash bill, longer-aged sister to W.L. Weller) is the most allocated and most expensive American whiskey. Woodford Reserve (Brown-Forman, premium Kentucky bourbon) is a key sister to Jack Daniel's. Within this landscape, Maker's Mark is the original wheated bourbon, the benchmark of the soft-and-rounded style, and the most consistently available premium wheated American whiskey in the world. It is also, uniquely, the wheated bourbon owned by a Japanese spirits group — connecting the Kentucky wheated tradition to Yamazaki, Hibiki, Hakushu and Courvoisier within Suntory Global Spirits. Tennessee whiskey at Jack Daniel's uses the Lincoln County Process to define a separate American whiskey category; Maker's Mark uses wheat to define a separate stylistic tradition within bourbon itself.
Maker's Mark FAQ
What is Maker's Mark?
Maker's Mark is one of the most recognised premium bourbons in the world, founded in 1953 by Bill Samuels Sr. at the Star Hill Farm distillery in Loretto, Kentucky — a National Historic Landmark, the oldest working bourbon distillery in the United States on its original site (the buildings date to 1805). Maker's Mark is the original wheated bourbon: rather than the standard bourbon recipe of corn-rye-malted barley, Bill Samuels Sr. famously burned the family's century-old whiskey recipe and built a new mash bill substituting soft red winter wheat for rye as the secondary grain. The result is a softer, sweeter, more rounded bourbon style. Every bottle is sealed with the brand's iconic hand-dipped red wax — designed by Bill's wife Margie Samuels in 1958. Maker's Mark has been part of Suntory Global Spirits since 2014.
What does Maker's Mark taste like?
Maker's Mark's house style is soft, sweet, smooth and rounded — defined by red winter wheat replacing rye as the secondary grain in the mash bill. Where rye-driven bourbons (the majority of Kentucky bourbon) lead with cinnamon, clove, black pepper and dried herbs, wheated bourbons like Maker's Mark lead with vanilla, caramel, soft baked bread, honey and gentle sweetness. Specifically, the signature Maker's Mark flagship offers woody oak, caramel, vanilla and wheat on the nose; sweet and balanced palate with caramel, vanilla and fruity essences; and a smooth, subtle finish. Bottled at 45% ABV (90 proof). The wheated style places Maker's Mark in the same family as Pappy Van Winkle and W.L. Weller — the most sought-after wheated bourbons in the world.
Why is Maker's Mark wax-dipped?
The hand-dipped red wax seal of Maker's Mark is one of the most recognised packaging features in any spirits category — and was designed in 1958 by Margie Samuels, the wife of founder Bill Samuels Sr. Margie was an active partner in the brand's creation: she designed the bottle shape, designed the label, named the bourbon (after the maker's marks she collected on her pewter pieces), and most famously developed the wax-dipping process by experimenting in her own kitchen. Every bottle of Maker's Mark — including bottles destined for the highest-end limited editions — is still hand-dipped in red wax at the Loretto distillery to this day. Margie Samuels was inducted into the Bourbon Hall of Fame in 2014, the first woman to receive the honour, recognising her foundational role in the brand.
What is wheated bourbon?
Wheated bourbon is bourbon made with wheat as the secondary grain in the mash bill, rather than the more common rye. US bourbon law requires a mash bill of at least 51% corn — beyond that, the distiller chooses the secondary grain, traditionally rye (Kentucky's standard) but optionally wheat or malted barley. Maker's Mark uses approximately 70% corn, 16% red winter wheat, 14% malted barley. The wheat gives the bourbon a softer, gentler, sweeter character — wheat contributes bread-and-vanilla notes rather than rye's spicy cinnamon-and-pepper backbone. Wheated bourbon is genuinely rare in mass-market American whiskey: the major wheated bourbons are Maker's Mark (the most widely available), W.L. Weller (made at Buffalo Trace), and Pappy Van Winkle. Within wheated bourbon, Maker's Mark is the global reference.
Who founded Maker's Mark?
Maker's Mark was founded in 1953 by T. William "Bill" Samuels Sr. — a sixth-generation Kentucky distiller from a family that had been making whiskey since 1783, originally in Pennsylvania and then in Kentucky. According to the brand's heritage, Bill Samuels Sr. wanted to create a bourbon that he would actually enjoy drinking himself, in deliberate contrast to the harsh, rye-heavy bourbons of the early 1950s. The famous origin story has Bill burning the original family whiskey recipe in his kitchen as a symbolic break with tradition, then experimenting with bread loaves baked from different grain combinations to find the softest, sweetest profile — which led him to substitute red winter wheat for rye. His wife Margie Samuels was his foundational partner, designing the bottle, label, name, and the iconic hand-dipped red wax seal. The Samuels family was directly involved in operating the brand for three generations.
Who owns Maker's Mark?
Maker's Mark has been part of Suntory Global Spirits since 2014, when the Japanese drinks giant Suntory acquired Beam Inc. (which had bought Maker's Mark from Hiram Walker in 1981). This makes Maker's Mark a sister brand of Suntory's Japanese single malts — Yamazaki, Hibiki and Hakushu — as well as Courvoisier Cognac, Jim Beam Kentucky bourbon, Knob Creek and Booker's small-batch bourbons, Laphroaig, Bowmore and Auchentoshan Scotch single malts, Hornitos and Sauza tequila, and Roku Japanese gin. Maker's Mark is operationally still run by the Samuels family — Rob Samuels is Chief Distillery Officer and has continued the family's involvement through the Suntory ownership era.
What is the Wood Finishing Series?
The Maker's Mark Wood Finishing Series is the brand's flagship innovation programme — first introduced in 2019 — that takes fully matured cask-strength Maker's Mark, places it in a second barrel with a custom selection of cooked and toasted oak staves, and rests it in the Maker's Mark limestone bourbon cellar to develop new flavour profiles. The technique is similar to Scotch single malt cask finishing but uses staves rather than full casks, allowing far more precise control of the flavour development. Releases have included Maker's Mark 46 (the original wood-finished bourbon, 2010), the Maker's Mark Private Selection programme, and the Wood Finishing Series limited editions. The Wood Finishing City Series is a global travel retail extension — featuring city-specific editions for New York (2022), Sydney (2022), Frankfurt (2023), Singapore (2024) and others, each developed with local tastemakers to capture the flavour profile of the city.
What is the Singapore Edition?
The Maker's Mark Wood Finishing City Series Singapore Edition is the fourth release in the brand's global travel retail Wood Finishing City Series — a Changi Airport Terminal 4 Lotte Duty Free exclusive limited to 720 bottles worldwide, launched in 2024. The expression was developed in collaboration with two Singapore-based tastemakers: chef and restaurateur Willin Low (named one of Singapore's best chefs by the Financial Times in 2009, founder of Wild Rocket and the Roketto Izakaya group) and Aki Eguchi (Bar Director at Jigger & Pony, one of Asia's most-acclaimed cocktail bars). The bourbon was finished with ten virgin oak staves designed to evoke Singapore's tropical character — pineapple, mango, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon — and is bottled at cask strength of 54.9% ABV. The Singapore Edition is one of the rarest Maker's Mark expressions ever released, with only 720 bottles in existence, and is available at The Liquid Collection in Singapore.
Where is Maker's Mark made?
Maker's Mark is made at the Star Hill Farm distillery in Loretto, Kentucky — about an hour southwest of Louisville in Marion County, Kentucky. The distillery has been operating on the same site since the early 19th century: the original buildings date to 1805, when the site began as Burks' Distillery, making it the oldest continuously operating bourbon distillery in the United States on its original site. Bill Samuels Sr. acquired the distillery in 1953 to launch Maker's Mark. The site is recognised as a National Historic Landmark — the only working distillery in the world with that designation — and is one of the most-visited destinations on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. The distillery uses limestone-filtered water from a private spring on the property, and famously rotates its barrels by hand throughout maturation to ensure even development from rick to rick.
Is Maker's Mark a good gift?
Yes — Maker's Mark is one of the most universally respected bourbon gifts in the world, particularly for premium occasions. The flagship Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky in its hand-dipped red wax bottle is the iconic gift, instantly recognisable and unfailingly well-received; the Wood Finishing Series Singapore Limited Release is the genuine collector's gift, with only 720 bottles in existence and direct connection to Singapore through the chef and bar director who developed it. The hand-dipped red wax, the Margie-Samuels-designed bottle, and the Suntory ownership tying Maker's Mark to Yamazaki, Hibiki, Hakushu and Courvoisier all give Maker's Mark unusually broad appeal as a gift. See our wider gifts selection for presentation options.
Do you deliver Maker's Mark across Singapore?
Yes. Free delivery anywhere in Singapore with no minimum order. Standard lead time is 3 working days.