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Marketing Maker’s Mark (A): Evolution of a Brand
Background Note
The origin of Maker’s Mark could be traced back to the early 1780s, when the first person of Samuels’s family, Robert Samuels, started distilling whisky for his personal use and for close friends. In 1840, following the suit, T.W. Samuels, the grandson to Robert Samuels, opened Samuels’s first commercial distillery in Nelson County. Between 1951 and 1954, the brand got its name, signature taste, and seal when Bill Samuels Sr. (Samuels Sr.) from the sixth generation of Samuels family, burnt the only copy of the 170-year old family recipe and tried to created a new formula for producing smoother whisky. The fresh recipe had pure limestone spring water with wheat, which gave the bourbon a smoother taste. Samuels Sr. experimented with several combinations of barley, corn, and wheat; it took almost six years for him to come up with something that met his own expectations. In the final recipe, rye was substituted with winter wheat. Samuels’s wife, Margie, gave the bourbon its name, Maker’s Mark. She also designed the bottle, its label, and the very famous dripping red wax seal. The mark of ‘S IV’ with a star on the bourbon bottles were also developed by Margie....... |
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The ‘S’ in the mark represented Samuels, while the IV stood for the fourth-generation distiller; the ‘star’ signified the distillery’s home — Star Hill Farm. (Refer to Exhibit I for an image of the Maker’s Mark Bottle) In February 1954, the first batch of Maker’s Mark was produced. By fall of 1958, after six summers of aging, Maker’s Mark entered the market with a price tag of US$6.79 per bottle. In 1964, under an act of Congress, bourbon was declared as ‘America’s Native Spirit’ as well as the country’s official distilled spirit. ........
