USA · KENTUCKY · WHEATED BOURBON
BOTTLE GUIDE · NOT YET SCORED · UPDATED AUGUST 2026
Ten seared staves, nine weeks, and the wheated standard grows up.
Maker's Mark spent fifty years not changing. Then in 2010 Bill Samuels Jr. and cooper Brad Boswell went looking for more wood without more years — and on the forty-sixth try they found it: ten seared French oak staves dropped into a barrel of fully matured Maker's, resting nine weeks in the coolest corner of the limestone cellar. The mash bill never moved — 70% corn, 16% red winter wheat, no rye at all. The proof went from 90 to 94. Everything else is what the staves did.
TYPICALLY $35–$50 · AUGUST 2026 · WIDELY AVAILABLE
WHY THERE'S NO NUMBER HERE YET
Every score on this site means one of us bought the bottle, drank it, wrote the note, and defended the number to two skeptics. Maker's Mark 46 hasn't been through that yet. So this page is everything we can verify without a glass in hand — the production, the wood, the mash bill, the price — and nothing we can't.
When Everett pours it, the tasting notes and the score land here and this line disappears. Until then, treat the facts below as reliable and the absence of a number as deliberate.
EVERETT BOONE · THE AMERICAN SEAT · REVIEW SCHEDULED
AI-generated editorial illustrations of maturation and serving; these do not depict the named bottle, its distillery or a tasting by our team.
MAKER'S MARK 46 · STORY & ORIGIN
Maker's Mark has always been the contrarian in Kentucky: red winter wheat where everyone else used rye, a rotated barrel instead of a fixed rickhouse slot, a bottle finished by hand in red wax. What it did not have, for five decades, was a second product. Bill Samuels Jr. wanted one that added depth without adding a decade, and he wanted it to still taste like Maker's.
He took the problem to Brad Boswell at Independent Stave, whose family had been building the distillery's barrels since the beginning. The answer wasn't a longer maturation or a different grain — it was a different piece of wood. Seared French oak, cut to a specific profile, slid into a barrel that had already finished its job. Profile forty-six was the one that worked. Nine weeks in the cool cellar, and the whisky picks up the caramel and toasted spice the staves give up without the tannic grip a hot warehouse would have pulled.
70% corn · 16% red winter wheat · 14% malted barley — no rye
Rotated barrel maturation across the warehouse
Pulled on taste, not on a number
Ten seared French oak staves inserted
Nine weeks in the limestone cellar
MAKER'S MARK 46 SPEC SHEET
| DISTILLERY | Maker's Mark · Loretto, Kentucky |
|---|---|
| OWNER | Suntory (Beam Suntory) |
| LAUNCHED | 2010 — first new expression in the brand's history |
| STYLE | Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky · wheated · French-oak finished |
| MASH BILL | 70% corn · 16% red winter wheat · 14% malted barley — no rye |
| AGE | No age statement — bottled on taste |
| FINISH | 10 seared French oak staves, ~9 weeks, limestone cellar |
|---|---|
| PROOF | 94 (47% ABV) |
| FILTRATION | Not stated by the distillery |
| TYPICAL PRICE | $35–$50 (August 2026) |
| AVAILABILITY | Wide — national distribution |
| OUR SCORE | Pending — not yet tasted by the panel |
Don't confuse this with Maker's Mark 46 Cask Strength — a separate release running roughly 107–114 proof depending on batch. This page is the 94-proof bottling.
WHO IS MAKER'S MARK 46 FOR?
You like Maker's and want the same shape with more wood behind it
Rye spice bothers you and wheat doesn't
You want a finished bourbon at supermarket money
You build Old Fashioneds and want a softer, sweeter base
You need a wheated reference point on the shelf
You'd rather buy two of these than hunt one allocated bottle
You want rye pepper — wrong grain, wrong bottle
You own Maker's Cask Strength and want more proof, not more wood
Finished whiskeys read as makeup to you
You need an age statement
You're chasing scarcity — this is on every shelf
You want our verdict before buying (fair — it's coming)
BUYING CONTEXT
THIS GUIDE
Score pending — not yet poured.
THE HOUSE STANDARD
The unfinished original. Also not yet reviewed here.
THE RYE-MASH RIVAL
90 / 100 — the everyday bourbon we have scored.
WHERE TO BUY MAKER'S MARK 46
This is one of the few genuinely good finished bourbons you can buy without a hunt. Street price sits between $35 and $50 depending on state and retailer.
$35–$45
Prices sampled August 2026 and move by state. We award no BEST PRICE tag here because we have not verified a single cheapest offer nationally. Superior Whiskey earns a commission on ReserveBar purchases — it never buys a tag, and there is no score on this page to influence.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Answered by Everett Boone · The American Seat
Stave profile No. 46 — the forty-sixth wood recipe Bill Samuels Jr. and Independent Stave trialled before one worked. Not an age, not a proof.
No. This is the 94-proof bottling. Cask Strength is a separate release running roughly 107–114 proof depending on batch.
Maker's uses red winter wheat as its flavouring grain instead of rye — softer, sweeter, less peppery. It's the whole house style, and 46 doesn't change it.
A Samuels family nod to Scottish ancestry. The label has always read whisky; most American bourbon reads whiskey.
No age statement. Maker's rotates its barrels and dumps on taste rather than on a number, then adds the nine-week stave finish on top.
We don't have one yet, and we're not going to invent one. Everett has this bottle scheduled; when he's poured it, the notes and the number appear on this page.
