Maker's Mark Wood Finishing Series 2020 SE4 x PR5

Vanilla with Burnt Caramel, maple syrup, and light leathery taste

Smoky taste

Makers seems to be quite the “hit or miss” for me, so curious as to how this one fares... Nose features caramel-dipped green apple, gingerbread, green cedar, and a hint of autumn potpourri. Great start. Palate hits you with a big caramel and nougat blast, followed by some vanilla, transitioning to baking spices (clove, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon) in the mid palate. Flavors are pretty rich. Not the most complex profile, but what’s here is tasty. Finish is smokey and oaky with some burnt coconut as well. What came off as cedar/piney on the nose presents as mature aged oak in the finish. It’s decently long, but I got to keep it real; there’s some distracting heat in the finish that comes off as unattenuated alcohol and it’s that burn that lingers. It’s seriously prickly. A real bummer for what might otherwise be a superior bourbon. Mouthfeel is very middle of the road, being neither thin nor chewy. I don’t know why Maker’s products often come of as unnecessarily hot/harsh to me, but they do (both private select and cask strength have fallen into this category) and this one is in line with those expressions. There’s some good stuff here, but at a $72 price tag I shouldn’t have major flaws to overlook. Nowhere in the vicinity of a re-buy. Geez, I may have to give up on Makers expressions as there just something here that doesn’t jive with my palate...