Narrator: For over six decades, a coating of red wax has been the signature look for one of America's best-selling
bourbons, Maker's Mark. It takes at least six
years to age one bottle, and the company's distillery
in a tiny Kentucky town pumps out 150,000 of them in one day. To call it bourbon, the gold liquid has to
be aged in oak barrels that are charred on the inside. Today, Maker's Mark has over
a million of them on site. The company can only
use each barrel once. But the white oak trees behind these barrels could be at risk. They're tough to grow, and the next generation
isn't doing so well. Brian: It takes approximately 90 years to grow the next batch of barrels. Narrator: So why are
white oaks so important to produce Maker's Mark bourbon? And how is the company fighting to protect its red-tipped
spirit as demand soars?

Kentucky Cooperage has been making bourbon barrels from white oak since 1960, and now supplies spirit distilleries all over the world. Andrew: Some of the barrels that we load here go all the way over to Scotland. Sometimes we'll load, and we'll send them right down the street to Maker's Mark. Narrator: White oak trees are cut into narrow strips of wood called staves. They age for a year, losing moisture and unwanted flavors. Workers loosely fit the staves together using a hammer and a temporary hoop. They call this raising. They only work with white oak, which is stronger and more durable than other woods. Andrew: We've experimented with probably 45 different types of woods that are not oak. The bad news there is that most of those woods, if you try to make them into a barrel, they're not going to bend, or they're going to leak. Narrator: The barrels go through a steam tunnel

to make the wood more pliable. Andrew: You have to steam it. Otherwise, when you try to
bend it, all the staves, right, they'll just crack
right around the middle. Narrator: A hydraulic
press squeezes the staves firmly together, as seen
in this promotional video filmed at another cooperage. Workers place the barrels
over a small firepit for 45 minutes to begin
bringing out natural flavors and aromas in the wood. It's called toasting. But the most important step is charring. They can't make bourbon without it. Employees roll the barrels into a machine, where an open flame burns a
layer of charcoal on the inside. Andrew: As soon as that
barrel catches fire, we're going to start a timer. Now, it's up to the customer to decide how long that timer goes. Narrator: For Maker's Mark,
the timer's set to 35 seconds to give the bourbon inside
a golden brown color.

and smoky flavor. Andrew: It's the coolest thing to see. Nine years later, I still get a little bit
enamored at the char fire. It's still a cool process. Narrator: Historians
believe early American spirit distillers started
charring the barrels to sanitize them. In the 18th century,
whiskey was aged in barrels previously used to store
things like seafood. Setting them on fire would
get rid of any residue. It turned out that the burnt
wood also gave the liquor distinct flavors. In 1938, it became law
that to be called bourbon, a drink must be aged in a
brand-new charred barrel to guarantee the flavor and aroma. The last step? They slide the permanent
hoops over the barrels to keep everything in place. The cooperage drops off
the finished barrels at a Maker's Mark factory up the road. Workers inspect each one. Defects or holes in the
wood could mean losing

valuable liquid. Back here, you could see
five to 10 leaks per day that are repairable prior to entry. Narrator: Employees have
to be careful moving the barrels, which can
weigh over 100 pounds. That's why they rely on a combination of tracks, trailers, and hoists. But bourbon-making begins days before any alcohol reaches
these barrels, in the wheat and corn fields nearby. The distillery gets up to six truckloads of corn every day. That's the most important
ingredient in Maker's Mark. Whiskey is made from a
mixture of fermented grains. But for whiskey to be considered
bourbon, more than half of its grain needs to be corn. Maker's Mark is 70% corn. Travis: To make sure that
we're getting that starch, that we're needing to get
the alcohol that's produced. Narrator: Before any truck can unload, the distillery takes
samples for quality control.

Travis: We want to check, make sure if there's any broken grain or foreign material in that grain. Narrator: That could contaminate the drink. Travis: Once he pulls that out, he's going to smell it to make sure there's no mold, no mildew, anything that smells off. Narrator: While most distilleries crush the grain into a fine powder, Maker's Mark leaves some chunks. Narrator: Workers prepare a mix of ground grains — corn, malted barley, and something that sets Maker's Mark apart, wheat instead of rye. Travis: So that soft red winter wheat is going to bring out more of a sweet smoothness to the bourbon, whereas rye is going to give you more of a spicy, little bit more of a bite, note. Narrator: They'll mix it all in water to make what's known as a mash. So it's almost like you're making porridge or oatmeal.

Narrator: They follow a strict recipe with very specific timing and temperatures for each ingredient. Narrator: What will finally turn it into alcohol is the founder's original yeast recipe. Workers jump-start a small amount in a stainless steel tank. They feed it a mix of grains, hops, and water until it's big enough that it can handle eating the mash. The yeast and mash are combined in a 9,600-gallon wooden vat. The mix sits at room temperature for a few days as the yeast turns the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. That's why you see these bubbles. Narrator: After two days ... Narrator: By day three, it smells fruity and is about 10% alcohol. A pump carries the liquid to the distillery's copper stills. Here, heat evaporates the alcohol, leaving behind the solid mash. The alcohol cools and condenses into a clear liquid. Everything's going to come off clear, because it hasn't been in the barrel yet.

to pick up any of its color. Narrator: It'll go through
two rounds of distillation, making it 65% alcohol. This is known as high wine. Before it heads to the barrel warehouse, workers do one last test. Narrator: The distillery
pipes clear bourbon over to the barrel warehouse. There, it's diluted with
the nearby lake's water to 55% alcohol. The quality of water is crucial, but luckily, the region has
pure spring water naturally filtered by the limestone rock. Then workers pump those barrels
full of the new bourbon. They hammer them closed
with a walnut cork. Shawn: We'll receive on average about four to five loads of barrels per day, and we're going to fill
anywhere from 800 to 900 barrels per day over two shifts. Narrator: This obsession with near-perfect barrels is crucial to the final product and standard in the production of high-quality alcoholic
drinks across the world.

In France, luxury wine producers will pay up to $50,000 for one of these barrels made with French oak. These can be up to 1,300 gallons, so the wine touches the surface area less often, keeping the oak flavors more subtle. This also minimizes oxygen levels to avoid souring the wine. Such large barrels need to be moved with forklifts and accessed using ladders and scaffolding. They're monitored closely while toasting, because the barrels could blister or blacken, meaning all that work to build them could go to waste. But bourbon aging is the complete opposite. The charred surface is essential for the final product. So the barrel is going to add 100% of the color, and depending on who you ask, 60% to 70% of the flavor. Narrator: Barrels age in the warehouses, where they're exposed to temperatures between 0 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

And as the seasons change,
the charred wood expands and contracts, allowing the bourbon to extract its caramelized
sugars and golden brown color. Oxygen entering the barrels
adds to the liquor's acidity. To balance the temperature exposure, barrels start at the top
floor, where it's hot and dry. They're eventually move
to the bottom floor, where it's cooler and humid. A lot of places will just
kind of store the barrels, let them age for six, seven
years, and never check on them. We're going to go in
once to twice per year to take an additional check. Narrator: Most barrels will
be ready after six years, but sometimes it can take eight. Maker's Mark ages a select
few for 10 or more years to market as special editions. It sells the used barrels
to distilleries in Scotland, which don't require new ones for aging. The finished bourbon is piped straight to the bottling plant.

One barrel is enough to fill about 250 to 325 bottles. Each one is sanitized with a shot of the company's own bourbon. And the factory pumps them out constantly. Travis: We're running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Narrator: In another room, workers cut the labels using a 1935 printing press. The labels and machine haven't changed since the company began over 70 years ago. Kim: There's certain things that are inherent and part of the Maker's DNA. Things like that will never change. But we work very hard to make our processes more efficient. Narrator: The adhesives are fixed to each glass container right before the finishing touch. Employees dip each bottle in this iconic red wax. The company engineered the wax to melt at extremely high heat, 350 degrees, so there's no risk of melting once it's dry. Because this job is so tough, workers will only stay at the station for 30 minutes.

This actually slows down the production line. Maker's Mark can fill up to 125 bottles a minute, while some other distillers can do 400. But the company says it's worth it, because it sets the bottles apart on the shelf. So we constantly rotate. A positive to that is that every one of our team members know how to do every job in the bottling department, whether it's dipping, working filler, capper, labeler, or driving a forklift. Narrator: This look was designed by one of the founders, Margie Samuels. She and her husband, Bill Samuels Sr., started the company in 1953. Margie came up with the red seal five years later to help advertise Maker's Mark as a luxury item. She prepared the first wax recipe in a deep fryer in her kitchen. But for much of the 20th century, bourbon was still seen

as a cheaper liquor for the working class who couldn't afford scotch. And in the '70s, Americans started to favor spirits like vodka and gin. Whiskey got a reputation
as an old man's drink. In the 1980s, Kentucky
distillers like Jim Beam and Buffalo Trace started
releasing small batches of special-edition bourbons,
hoping to turn the tide. The strategy paid off in the 1990s. There was a renaissance
of cocktail culture, and whiskey drinks like
Manhattans, old fashioneds, and mint juleps came back into style. In the following two decades, bourbon's popularity pushed
up production in Kentucky by nearly 500%. In 2022, distillers in
the state hit a record 2.7 million barrels of bourbon. Today, Maker's Mark sells about
36 million bottles a year, making it one of the most popular bourbon brands in the world. But there's one problem on the horizon.

The white oak trees that are essential for barrel-making can take nearly a century to mature. Other species, like red maples, can grow nearly five times as fast. These other trees can quickly cover the forest canopy, blocking the sunlight white oaks need to grow. It's not deforestation that's driving white oak loss in the US. It's a shift in forest cover, which is driven by, you know, invasive species. And climate change isn't helping, either. And so when we look at that next set of oaks that are going to mature into, you know, barrels in 60, 100 years, they're not there. They're at a much lower level. Narrator: Some experts estimate that if nothing is done, the entire white oak population could decline by 80% in the next few decades. Better forest management would help. That means things like controlled burnings of decaying or undesired trees.

If I were dependent
on the cream of the crop out of these forests, I would
be very concerned about what's going to happen in 20 years. Narrator: One oak tree can
make about two barrels, but it needs to be perfect and straight, like this one on Maker's Mark property. Amanda: What you're looking
for for a barrel tree is that beautiful straight
part just in the middle, just below all the branches. No knots, no blemishes, because they're going to
cause leakages in barrels. Narrator: They call this
one the mother tree. She's never going to make
a barrel tree, by the way. We're never felling her. Narrator: It's older than
any typical white oak, and the company mapped its genetics. So we think our mother
tree is anywhere from 300 to 500 years old. What we did is we shot down buds from the top of her with a BB gun.

and we broke them down
into over 540 million pairs of DNA that we can take
learnings from in sequence. Why she stood the test of time, why she'd done so well in this climate. Narrator: Maker's Mark
has a breeding program, and it's planted 10,000
new seedlings here. What we hope to do is be able
to help improve the species so that all future seedlings
will grow straighter, that will grow faster. Narrator: They're studying 500 variations of white oaks from across the Eastern US to see which can best
tolerate pests, diseases, and a changing climate. Amanda: If we aren't
good stewards of our land maintaining these healthy ecosystems, then we're not going to be down here in 200 years time making whiskey.

How Maker’s Mark Produces 34 Million Bottles Of Bourbon A Year | Big Business | Business Insider

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