Maker’s Mark CommUNITY Batch 2022 Review

The CommUNITY Batch 2022
Maker’s Mark
Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky
Barrel Finished with Selected Oak Staves
108.7 Proof

Please enjoy our Maker’s Mark CommUNITY Batch 2022 Bourbon Review!

A Collaboration Between Maker’s Mark and the LEE Initiative

The CommUNITY batch is a collaboration between Maker’s Mark and the LEE Initiative. The LEE (which stands for Let’s Empower Employment) Initiative was founded in 2017 by Chef Edward Lee and Lindsey Ofcacek and creates and implements programs to address issues of diversity and equality in the restaurant industry. One of the LEE Initiative’s programs is The Women Culinary & Spirits Program. Indeed, their mission is to address the void in women’s leadership in the restaurant and spirit industry. Therefore, this year’s CommUNITY Batch is a blend of Maker’s Mark® expressions that the mentees of The LEE Initiative’s Women Culinary & Spirits Program have created going back to 2018.

The Ultimate Maker’s Mark Private Selection

The CommUNITY Batch bourbon is the ultimate Maker’s Mark Private Selection. What is a Maker’s Mark Private Selection? As described on their website: “Private Selection is created by adding 10 custom wood finishing staves to each barrel. It’s then aged in our limestone cellar to extract a unique, flavorful taste profile.” There are 5 different staves to choose from, each with a different characteristics, and the combinations result in very unique flavor profiles. Maker’s periodically changes which staves one can choose. Therefore, since the recipes for the Private Selects blended for this batch date back to 2018, this year’s Maker’s CommUNITY Batch contains bourbons finished with 6 different staves instead of five. Isn’t that cool? The percentage of each stave used is listed on the back label of the bottle.

Tasting Notes

Let’s taste it:

🛌 Rested for 15 minutes in a Glencairn

👉Nose: Sweet cherry candy, but some dark cherry, too; vanilla, cinnamon, caramel, oak & cedar; some leather towards the back; moderate alcohol
👉Taste: Cherry, chocolate, caramel, oak; some butterscotch later on
👉Finish: Cherry sweetness continues; oak, char and a surprising degree of black pepper spice builds; all the flavors linger for a long time; moderate burn

If I had to pick one flavor comparison, it would be cherry Tootsie pop.

Summary

People talk about the Cherry flavors in Maker’s Mark, and occasionally I notice that cherry flavor to varying degrees. However, the 2022 Community Batch is just dominated by cherry in a variety of forms, from the nose to the finish. Mixed in are some of the other flavors I would expect from a Maker’s Mark Private Selection, although there seems to be a bit more oak and char than in the many others that I have tasted. What makes this, and the other, CommUNITY batches so special, other than the causes that they support, is that by being a blend of multiple Private Selection barrels they can achieve stave combinations that are not attainable in a single barrel. So some unique flavors can be created, as they are here.

This really is a special bourbon! Have you tried any of the Maker’s Mark CommUNITY batches? What did you think? Cheers!

We hope you have enjoyed our Maker’s Mark CommUNITY Batch 2022 Bourbon Review! The prior batches were a bit different. You’ll definitely want to read our Maker’s Mark CommUNITY Batch 2020 Review!

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