As mentioned in our review of Maker’s Mark Marshmallow Krispy Treat, Maker’s does a fairly substantial presence on the shelves as private selections (or store picks). These picks are made up of combinations of finishing staves to impart different flavors on 5 – 7 year old Maker’s Mark Cask Strength. The finished Maker’s Mark Cask Strength then aged for an additional 9 weeks in temperature controlled conditions. Unlike their Marshmallow Krispy Treat, this offering is going for a more breakfast or dessert approach, as they’ve selected the name Maker’s Mark: Crumble Coffee Cake.
As always, be aware these combinations get reused by other private selections with different names, so double check your stave profiles to avoid duplicates or find your favorites.
Maker’s Mark Crumble Coffee Cake
OHLQ described Maker’s Mark Crumble Coffee Cake as follows:
Complex, velvety mouthfeel with aromas of roasted coffee beans, and rich flavors of brown sugar, warm cinnamon and bold baking spices, pie crust, and dried fruit.
- Stave Profile:
- 2 Baked American Pure
- 2 Maker’s Mark 46
- 2 Roasted French Mendiant
- 4 Toasted French Spice
- Proof: 111.3 (ABV 55.65%)
- Age: NAS
As I split this bottle with a friend, the fill level is at half.
Sight: A pleasant oloroso sherry.
Smell: The nose erupts with vanilla and caramel. Behind them comes in this wonderful unctuous, creamy coffee note. Like a cappuccino with some cinnamon on top. A subtle dessert pastry like note comes in with plenty of brown sugar and a hint of preserved fruits, syrupy cherry, and baking spice.
Sip: The body lighter than the proof would imply, and before you read lots of sweet words, drier than it seems from the nose. A coffee and perfumed vanilla note comes through, before the heat starts joining. The midpalate has a more crumbly brown sugar note going on, with more vanilla, touches of caramel, and a bit of dried fruit. The back end gets vanilla cream heavy, somehow feeling lanolin and thin at the same time, but nailing this vanilla frosting note.
Savor: The ending is a cacophony of vanillas mixing with caramel and some obvious oak. The add in of spice and brown sugars make this combination a bit muddle, but does do a good job of conveying a dessert / cake like element. Perhaps just a bit of bitter tannins on the end.
Maker’s Mark Crumble Coffee Cake has a highly developed nose, and a palate that tries to keep up. The influence of the different finishes on the nose is really stunning, drawing you in like you’re about to have dessert. The taste is good but dry, but has a middling level of complexity that keeps you picking at it. The ending is where it gets a little muddled, throwing every sweet note from the staves at you, with vanilla (capital VANILLA) wherever it can. Overall, it’s fun to sip, but certainly not going to be the sort of bottle you shout from the roof tops about.
In Cocktails
In a Manhattan, this expression of Maker’s Mark does a beautiful vanilla and caramel cream mix across a background of baking spice (leaning toward clove). The coffee notes of the oak really come out here, giving a nice subtle roasty nature to the whole drink. Made with Maker’s Mark Crumble Coffee Cake, the drink comes out like a mature dessert, that would probably pair well with actual coffee cake or a dessert with less sweetness (like flourless chocolate cake).
In Review – Maker’s Mark Crumble Coffee Cake
While Maker’s Mark Crumble Cake seems like it should be a dessert, it’s more dry than the name implies. Despite this, it’s an ok sipper that probably slightly undersells its $70 price tag. The shine here is in making a bang on dessert like Manhattan. It keeps your wanting another sip that goes all the way through vanilla and caramel with a cup of coffee. While this is a good bottle, the price tag means you’ll have to weigh how much you want to enjoy quite good bourbon, versus how much you want look for great bourbon or a new bottle.
Put differently, Maker’s continues to put out solid, high floor / low ceiling bottles that range from good to very good, but slide slightly short of great. This bottle falls toward to the good side of the spectrum, but is still very enjoyable.