For seven decades, Maker’s Mark has produced whisky in its iconic red wax bottle, a recipe Margie and Bill Samuels Sr, settled on in 1953 after famously burning the family’s 170-year-old whiskey ledger. The Loretto, Kentucky, distillery had never strayed from it until last year. Star Hill Farm Whisky, named after the land the distillery sits on, arrived in 2025 as Maker’s Mark’s first new mash bill since the Eisenhower administration and its first wheat whisky. Now it’s back for a second annual release, which arrives in the UK on the 18th of May.
The structure is still the same as the debut, two mash bills blended together, one made entirely of malted wheat, the other 70% wheat and 30% malted barley to produce a final composite of 27% wheat, 62% malted wheat and 11% malted barley. The 2025 release used soft red winter wheat, which gives Maker’s Mark bourbon its creamy, rounded character. The 2026 release keeps the soft red winter wheat in the recipe, but incorporates hard red and white hard wheat varietals, offering further depth and complexity.
On the nose, the whisky is dark and intense, think molasses, fig and spice, giving way to dark chocolate. The palate is vibrant and complex, zesty citrus, ripe pear and shortbread alongside black and red berries and a touch of vanilla, with a finish of rich sweetness and soft cinnamon.
Dr Blake Layfield, master distiller at Maker’s Mark, said this: “The first release of Star Hill Farm Whisky was bright, approachable and straightforward; this year we’ve dialled up the complexity,” said Dr Blake Layfield, master distiller at Maker’s Mark. “The 2026 release is a balanced blend of seven and eight-year whiskies bottled at cask strength, evolving from first sip to finish“.
The 2025 release was the first whiskey ever to earn Estate Whiskey certification from the Estate Whiskey Alliance. The qualifying threshold, for this dictates that every step of production happens on the estate and that at least two-thirds of the grain has to be grown on estate-owned or estate-controlled land. The 2026 release carries this same certification.
And if you wondered why Maker’s Mark dropped the “e” in whisky, it’s a nod to the Samuel’s family’s Scot-Irish heritage, and Star Hill Farm follows suit.
What makes Star Hill Farm so interesting isn’t that it’s a wheat whisky, it’s that it’s a project structured to keep changing. Different wheat varieties, different cooperage experiments, built on the premise that the recipe should never be the same twice.
Priced at £100 a bottle and bottled at 58.2% ABV, the 2026 release won’t stay on the shelves for long. UK stockists include Harrods, Selfridges, Berry Bros & Rudd and Fortnum & Mason.
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