BADASS BOURBON: THE MOXIE OF MAKER’S MARK

Susan Schwartz gets right to the heart of the real roots of the badass reputation of Kentucky Bourbon.
Images by Simon Urwin

Simply put, bourbon is badass. Just look at its fans: George Washington, James Bond, John Wayne, Anthony Bourdain, and even Hilary Clinton. With brand names such as Pappy Van Winkle, Wild Turkey, Elijah Craig, and Ezra Brooks, bourbon makes you feel badass just by placing an order.

I know that being badass is not quite what a brand is going for these days, but one American Whiskey has been playing up its badass-ness recently with its connection to one of the most famous outlaws of the American West. Any 250-year-old bourbon brand is bound to have served a few American criminals in its time. Bourbon is, after all, an American whiskey and Americans have been drinking it since the United States of America had only twelve of its now fifty states. 

In 1865, at the end of the Civil War, Frank James, brother to the nefarious Jesse James, surrendered his firearm to Sheriff T.W. Samuels, owner of the T.W. Samuels and Son distillery in Kentucky. Before garnering outlaw status, Frank and Jesse, originally from Missouri, proudly donned the grey with their fellow Southerns in support of secession. As the Union moved in, Frank and Jesse went rogue with a group of guerillas known as bushwackers. The Northerners were having none of it and Frank and his bushwacking cohorts were captured at what is now Samuels House and owned by Bill Samuels, Jr., a descendent of T.W. and Chairman Emeritus of Maker’s Mark Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.

All these different Samuels can get confusing, so let me put them in order for you. Robert Samuels was the first whiskey maker who set up shop in 1784 and called George Washington a client. His son was John Samuels who built Samuels House around 1820. Relative Taylor William (aka T.W.) who founded T.W. Samuels & Son distillery in 1840 was also County Sheriff.  Dr. Reuben Samuels was T.W.’s brother and stepfather to Frank and Jesse James through marriage to their mother, Zeralda James. 

The James  pistol takes pride of place amongst the other Maker’s Mark memorabilia in the newly-opened-to-the-public Samuels House in Cox’s Creek, Kentucky, about an hour from the Maker’s Mark Distillery in Loretto. As famous as the James brothers were and as cool as it is to see the pistol in real life, there is one item in Samuels House that is way more badass than that: a very old, very used, deep fryer owned by the real badass of Maker’s Mark, Marjorie Mattingly Samuels.  

Although the Samuels have been selling bourbon for a long, long time, Maker’s Mark, as a brand, began with Bill Samuels, Sr. in the 1950’s. Starting anew, he chose to forego the historic family recipe which his grandson, and now President of Maker’s Mark, described as “godawful ”, to create the 70% corn, 16% red winter wheat and 14% malted barley whiskey we know today.

Now, more than 60 years later, in almost every bar in almost every country, you can find a bottle of Maker’s Mark Bourbon with its iconic red wax seal on every top shelf.  Yes, the liquid is great, but it took more than that for Maker’s Mark to become a household name, and that was the genius of Margie Samuels and her deep fryer.  

‘Now, more than 60 years later, in almost every bar in almost every country, you can find a bottle of Maker’s Mark Bourbon with its iconic red wax seal on every top shelf’

‘The label was her design as well. If you visit the distillery, look closely and you will see even the shutters of the distillery buildings are the same red color as the wax seal’

A biochemist by trade, she formulated the wax so it would drip down the bottle and then harden immediately.  It is in that deep fryer at Samuels House that she perfected the technique that is used to this day.  The red wax seal was not the only innovation she had for this brand-new bourbon. Bored by the look of every other bourbon bottle on the market and a lover of cognac, she patterned the Maker’s Mark bottle on the look of the more upmarket French brandy bottles of the time. 

The name Maker’s Mark was a nod to her love and collection of English Pewter.  Any collector of silver or pewter will know that the maker’s mark is stamped on the bottom to prove the purity of the object in hand. The label was her design as well. If you visit the distillery, look closely and you will see even the shutters of the distillery buildings are the same red color as the wax seal and decorated with a cutout of the bottle – also her idea. 

Margie’s input was so important that she was the first woman ushered into the Kentucky Hall of fame in 2014. Although more in-law than outlaw, Margorie bushwacked her way into the very masculine world of bourbon at the time. She may have married into the business, but she made it her own. She was the real badass of bourbon. So if you are heading for a night at the Samuels House, don’t miss giving that deep fat fryer the reverence it deserves. 

‘Bored by the look of every other bourbon bottle on the market and a lover of cognac, she patterned the Maker’s Mark bottle on the look of the more upmarket French brandy bottles of the time’ 

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