Why The Iconic Red Wax Drip On Maker's Mark Bourbon Bottles Is A Big Deal

It's easy to locate bottles of Maker's Mark bourbon on your liquor store's shelves. They're the only ones with red wax that completely covers the bottle tops and drips down the bottles' necks. This iconic red wax seal, which Maker's Mark Distillery trademarked in 1985, is so closely associated with Maker's Mark bourbon that Maker's Mark Distillery won a court case in 2012 against Diageo North America, which had started using red wax on its Jose Cuervo Reserva tequila bottles. What's more, the red wax on your Maker's Mark bottle is hand-dipped, just as the very first Maker's Mark bottles were in 1958. That's right. Every Maker's Mark bottle is dipped into melted red wax by a distillery employee, not a machine. 

In fact, if you visit the distillery at Star Hill Farm in Loretto, Kentucky, you can even dip your own bottle. Margie Mattingly Samuels, co-founder of Maker's Mark Distillery, created the hand-dipped red wax seal. She suggested the Maker's Mark name and designed the bottle's label, too, right down to the font used for the brand's name. She's also the reason that Maker's Mark doesn't call its product "whiskey" and instead uses the typical Scottish spelling, "whisky." And believe it or not, there is a difference between "whisky" and "whiskey." Margie Samuels wanted her family's bourbon to stand out from the competition and project an image of quality and distinction.

Occasionally, a Maker's Mark bourbon bottle dipper gets a bit too enthusiastic and covers a bottle's neck with wax that runs onto the shoulders and body of the bottle and drips onto the label. Collectors call these bottles "slam dunks" or "oops" bottles. While seeking out a bottle with too much wax on it might seem a bit extreme, Maker's Mark aficionados love finding slam dunks. There's even a secondary market for these over-waxed bourbon bottles.

It turns out that there's a difference between slam dunks and over-dipped Maker's Mark bourbon bottles. In 2022, Steve Akley of the ABV Network (via Bourbon Sasquatch on YouTube) interviewed Terry Gabhart, a Maker's Mark Distillery employee with seven years of experience on the bottling line, and learned that one in every 12 bottles of Maker's Mark Cask Strength Bourbon Whisky is over-dipped, meaning that the wax goes down the neck of the bottle and onto the bottle's shoulders, but doesn't completely cover the shoulders. 

Maker's Mark Bourbon Whisky slam dunks are much rarer, about one per pallet, according to Gabhart. Maker's Mark Distillery will also sometimes produce bourbon bottles with wax that is not red. These unusual bottles are usually created for fundraisers, special edition bottling runs, or holiday releases. Most of the time, however, looking for that signature red wax drip is a sure way to find a bottle of Maker's Mark.