• Bloomberg, Monday, November 1, 2010 10:53 AM

The bourbon industry was dying on the 1980s, John Mariani writes, as consumers viewed the drink as unsophisticated. "Traditional bourbons were regarded as something your grandpa drank on the porch," says Bill Samuels Jr., president Maker's Mark distillery.

Samuel's father Bill, Sr., had launched Maker's Mark in 1958. Made in copper stills that most bourbon producers had abandoned, it's slightly sweeter and much smoother than competitors' hootch. And it proved to be so successful that all 10 of Kentucky's distilleries eventually altered their formulas, styles, and marketing. Maker's Mark, meanwhile, rested on its laurels.

"We'd spent so much time and focus on simply not screwing up the product that we didn't innovate ...," says Samuels. "We asked ourselves, can we create a bourbon in the Maker's Mark style people already love that is really, well, yummy." It thinks it has found the answer, Mariani writes, in Maker's Mark 46 bourbon, which he says tastes of "cinnamon and black pepper, followed by vanilla and caramel notes, then a very long, lingering finish with all those components in synch."

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