Bill Samuels talks about Makers Mark

[B.B. Babington]

surprised no one's posted this yet. or did they and I missed it? Son of Makers founder talks about dad building the biz and how trends are rapidly changing today. spoke like a down to earth business man. talked graciously about an asian whiskey winning recent awards, and that's good for the industry to keep things buzzing. great interview. very down to earth when saying he wasn't fan of trying cask strength but that customers twisted their arms so they had to.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4149306659001/former-makers-mark-ceo-spills-bourbon-secrets/?#sp=show-clips

[GrPeMi]

Maybe it's just me...but I found it a bit disrespectful that all the B-Roll that they were running was from Woodford / L&G (those barrel heads are pretty distinctive). Don't tell me they couldn't have sent a local producer and cameraman to get some B-Roll from Makers to run with that interview...

[squire]

While folksy and genteel in a traditional Southern manner it's sugar coated bullshit nonetheless. It's true Bill Sr. set out in the early 1950s to create a premium brand but he did it by cloning Old Fitzgerald with the approval and help of Pappy Van Winkle including the loan of a Stitzel-Weller Master Distiller whose last name was Beam.

Makers reputation as we know it was created after the Hiram Walker purchase by a massive ad campaign beginning with the famous WSJ article in 1981. Makers reputation today rests on a quality product but all product decisions (Makers Black Label, Makers 46) are made by corporate and to say that Cask Strength resulted from bartenders roaming around the warehouse randomly sampling barrels is laughable.