Maker’s Mark: It Is What It Isn’t

Maker's Mark is a US bourbon whisky brand with an established heritage. Yet market research showed that sales were driven mainly by a hard core of loyalists.

Maker's Mark: It Is What It Isn't

Over 50 years ago in Loretto, KY, Bill Samuels, a fifth-generation whisky distiller, focused his talents and skill on creating a better-tasting bourbon, breaking away from "the way it was always done." The result was Maker's Mark, an iconic Spirits brand whose high quality, smooth taste, and signature red wax-sealed bottles defined the "premium bourbon" category as we know it.

His son, Bill Samuels Jr. (who recently retired as CEO of Maker's Mark), built the brand into a 1MM case business much the same way as his father envisioned—through discovery. This meant that...

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