September 25, 2025 • 12 mins
Recorded in the Heritage Room at Maker’s Mark in Kentucky, this episode marks a truly historic moment in American whiskey. We sit down with Dr. Blake Layfield, Master Distiller and Head of Innovation at Maker’s Mark, to discuss the launch of Star Hill Farm Wheat Whiskey.
This is the first new mash bill from Maker’s Mark since 1953, and it represents a turning point in American whiskey history. We cover:
-
How Star Hill Farm Wheat Whiskey was created and why it matters
-
The influence of terroir, regenerative agriculture, and sustainability in whiskey making
-
The world’s first estate whiskey certification
-
Detailed tasting notes, comparisons, and the future of Maker’s Mark innovation
Whether you’re a Maker’s fan, a bourbon collector, or simply curious about whiskey’s next chapter, this episode offers rare insight into one of the most important releases of our time.
Chapters
00:00:00 – Opening from Star Hill Farm, Loretto, KY 00:02:01 – Dr. Blake Layfield on Maker’s Mark innovation 00:04:02 – Creating Maker’s Mark’s first new mash bill since 1953 00:05:03 – Does mash bill matter? Exploring wheat, terroir, and regenerative farming 00:06:03 – Tasting Star Hill Farm Wheat Whiskey: notes & first impressions 00:08:06 – Experimental casks, estate certification & transparency 00:10:20 – Regenerative agriculture and the Million Acre Initiative
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Well, it's just so exciting HWIT in Laredo, Kentucky, Starhill Farm.
guest.
Very special guest.
We've got Dr.
Blake Layfield, master distiller, head of innovation and blending here at Makes Mark.
Thanks so much for joining us on the podcast Blake.
Thanks for having us.
Yeah, thank you so much for coming all the way from Australia.
Well, we would definitely come this far for some delicious wonderful whiskey and you'vegot a wonderful innovative new product from Makers Mark and from Yoltsin.
(00:28):
Tell us about what we've got in front of us.
do.
So what we're going to be tasting today is Starhill Farm Wheat Whiskey.
This is the first time since 1953 that we've ever created a new mash dill.
And this is celebrating nature as the maker and championing our ability to regenerate it.
Maker's Mark is known for our weeded bourbon.
(00:49):
Since 1953, we've only made one mash dill.
It's 70 % corn, 16 % soft red winter wheat, and 14 % malted barley.
Our first innovation came in 2010 with Maker's Mark 46, which is where we take CastrakeMaker's Mark, we take 10 Virgin Seared French Oak Staves, put it into that whiskey for
(01:10):
nine weeks at a cool temperature, and that articulated Bill Samuel's Junior's perfectversion of Maker's Mark.
And why I tell that story and why it's unique is that it set the guardrails for whatinnovation really means for Maker's Mark.
It means that flavor comes from nature, it comes from water, it comes from oats.
It comes from grains, comes from yeast, it comes from time.
(01:31):
How you manipulate and articulate those variables creates the diversity of products thatyou see on the shelf.
And that flavor also comes from place.
It comes from here.
I get so many people that say, wow, Blake, wouldn't it be amazing to do a Maker's Markaged in a scotch barrel or aged in an X rum barrel or extra tequila barrel?
Sure, it probably would be a really interesting flavor, but it wouldn't be somethingthat's authentic, that's transparent, that's truthful, really, for us to be leveraging
(01:57):
someone else's flavor.
and not articulated what makes ours so, special.
So in 2016, our, ah the grandson of the founders, our managing director and eighthgeneration whiskey maker, Rob Samuels, my boss, he said, how do we really highlight and
showcase the unique attributes of Maker's Mark?
And our unique attribute is our choice of wheat.
(02:19):
What wheat brings to the bourbon category is very different than rye.
Most of the category is made with rye, and it gives a different.
viscosity but also gives a different flavor profile.
So wheat gives us a sweetness and a creaminess, like a viscosity, I don't mean creamy likedairy, but a viscosity has a weight on your tongue and it gives you a spice note that's
very different than rye.
Whereas rye is black pepper and clove and grassy type.
(02:44):
Our spice is more of your holiday baking spices, your cinnamons and your nutmegs.
But how do we really showcase that to people?
Because I can wax poetically about it.
But it's best if I can show you in a liquid form.
So that actually led us to create our first ever new mash bill, which was 70 % wheat and30 % malted barley.
(03:04):
And you might say, wow, why did you pick that percentage?
That's kind of random.
Keep in mind that our mash bill for Makers Mark Classic Bourbon is 70 % corn, 16 %soft-roasted winery, 14 % malted barley.
We just removed all the corn.
What would happen if we took the corn out and really focused on our flavoring grains?
And then Rob asked another really interesting and compelling question, which is,
(03:26):
How do you know you've gone too far unless you go far enough?
And that led us to create our second new mash bill, which is 100 % malted wheat.
So Star Hill Farm Wheat Whiskey is a blend of those two mash bills aged for between sevenand eight years at cast strength.
And what we learned from that is it creates an entirely different whiskey.
(03:49):
You might wonder why it doesn't have red wax on it.
It's because it's not a bourbon.
If it's not a bourbon, it's not Maker's Mark.
But it is Star Hill Farm and this represents us continuing to push the American whiskeycategory forward.
We learned so much about the impact of grain because it is a discussion within the whiskeyindustry.
Does mash bill matter?
(04:10):
Some people say, well, the distillation, it removes all the flavor and it's all about theoak.
And what we definitively showed for us at least is that no, new make spirit and the mashbill absolutely matters.
And then we started to really think about, well, why did our
Founders Juice soft red when a wheat.
We're starting to explore varietals of grain.
(04:30):
And then as we started to go on some of that exploration, said, wow, well, if the varietalmatters, we were getting some reports of these really great varietals in different parts
of the US.
would bring them here and they would taste totally differently.
Well, does terroir matter for grains?
And then when it comes to terroir, is it just the environment around it?
Like the temperature and the rainfall?
(04:53):
or is it the actual soil, the biology of the soil and the farming conditions?
And as we started to explore all of these topics, which will be future parts of theStarhill Farm release, we started to really understand that regenerative agriculture
really not only sustains the environment, but improves the soil biology itself, which thenmakes more flavorful crops, and alleged to certify all of our new-make spirit for Maker's
(05:17):
Mark in November of 2023, is certified for regenerative agriculture.
and Starhill Farm is really what we credit for us pushing forward in that sustainablemanner.
So let's have a little taste of nature.
(05:40):
Amazing.
I love the silence, it says a lot.
It noses beautifully and we're big fans of wheat whiskies.
um It's so smooth and so different to your normal wheat whisky.
Because I think I think of a wheat whiskey tasting a little bit like how I grew up on afarm and it tastes a little bit like you talk about stepping off a header and tasting you
(06:03):
know that kind of the wheaty
Yeah, when I know other weak whiskies, I go straight back to the memories of stepping offthe header or helping my dad out on the farm.
Whereas I found with this, it's a lot more subtle and smoother.
It's beautiful.
I get a lot of caramelization on the nose.
We talked about for Maker's Mark, we have a citrusy, bright cherry type of note that tendsto express itself, but in this it's really articulating as more of like an apple type of
(06:29):
note.
So I'm getting like a lot of an apple note and as it goes into the palette, you get thatcreaminess, that viscosity is really amplified and it's almost like a baked apple crunch
on the mid-palette.
That cascade is in some nice like toasted pecan notes and you get that spice that Imentioned.
Yes, really coming out those baking spices quite nicely on the back end.
(06:50):
Nice warmth.
uh
I think I'm surprised by how close it tastes to, it doesn't taste like you saw it, but itdoes taste like a grape bourbon almost in a way that surprised me.
I was expecting something that was going to taste quite like completely different productthat I was nervous I wouldn't like it if I'm being really honest.
I was worried, oh, weak whiskey, is it going to be really that good?
(07:11):
But this is unbelievable.
And those fruit characteristics as well are so prevalent.
It's like a lovely fruity, rich, yet delicious mouthfeel.
It's also so good.
When you started the process, were you surprised by the way that it kind of came throughand as you were kind of tasting it, as it was kind of aging, were you surprised by how
(07:31):
We honestly didn't know how it was going to taste, but that was why we did the work.
mean, some experiments work, some of them don't.
But that's why it's called innovation.
um But just during the fermentation, when you're standing over those fermenters, we've gotour eight traditional Cypress fermenters that are open top, and you can really smell
what's happening.
(07:52):
We knew this was going to be a really amazing whiskey, and as the new-make spirit cameoff...
We knew we had something there.
it goes, where you're getting some of the commonalities is it is still within the Americanwhiskey context.
It does still leverage virgin charred American oak casks as the primary bit.
Now we did also do some experimental casks.
So there's American oak, there's French oak, there's hybrid barrels, and there's somebarrels that are looking at surface area in there because this is a wheat whiskey.
(08:17):
It's not a bourbon.
We didn't know how it was gonna mature.
And unlike in Maker's Mark where we rotate our barrels for consistency, we do not.
rotate these.
So these are actually coming from the warehouse as nature is creating it.
Okay, opens up a lot of opportunities for us to blend a lot of diversity of flavorprofiles for us.
um But the other thing to point out for this, this actually does carry the world's firstestate whiskey certification.
(08:42):
And what that means to your customers and consumers is that we make this product, um thatwe mill it, we mash it, we ferment it, we distill it, we barrel it, we bottle it at this
distillery.
which is actually quite uncommon in today's whiskey industry where there's NDPs ornon-distillery producers where they're buying bulk from someone else, putting their label
(09:03):
on it.
So this showcases transparency and authenticity to your customers and consumers.
It also means that two thirds of the grains come from within a 75 mile radius of thedistillery.
I know miles don't translate to kilometers, but it's a short distance around thedistillery.
So you get a flavor of place.
You're getting sustainability.
You're getting that flavor of terroir.
um in that real impact.
(09:24):
So that's what that means.
And we're carrying this certification is actually through an independent third party ofthe University of Kentucky is a global whiskey certification.
So we'll actually start to see this coming out of Ireland, Scotland, Mexico, the US andJapan coming out very soon.
We know there's many other people that are coming out with this.
So you get to be part of all of the process.
And I also heard someone mention that the proceeds from the bottle go to help other, likethe regenerative farmers.
(09:49):
That's correct.
So we've got the million acre initiative where I just mentioned why we think regenerativeagriculture is the way not only from an environmental standpoint, but because we think it
makes the best flavored whiskey.
We're all about making great whiskey in the most culturally relevant and sustainable waypossible.
using these proceeds to propel regenerative agriculture forward because if a brand likeMaker's Mark can do it, any brand can do it.
(10:14):
Amazing.
There's some cool things as well.
I know we're running out of time again, but there's some cool things on this bottle thatI've noticed.
One of them is the fact that the bottom edge is hand torn, which is kind of a, I imagine anod to Margie's original vision.
The other one is that the Star Hill farm, the icons gone to eight.
(10:35):
you tell us what the story is with that?
That's correct.
So on maker's mark, anything with the red wax, it's S with the Roman numeral four.
So Samuel's stands for the S and fourth for fourth generation whiskey maker.
And if you ask Rob, he'll say, well, that was Margie's only mistake because technically hewas the sixth generation.
(10:56):
He was the fourth generation that was registered, but they had two unregistered distillersin their lineage.
So it has changed to S8 to reflect Rob.
So this is Rob's vision.
um of whiskey and really pushing the narrative for American whiskey and the story ofMaker's Mark forward.
So it has gone from S with the Roman numeral four to S with the Roman numeral eightbecause Rob Samuels is our eighth generation whiskey maker, including those two.
(11:22):
I was included too.
uh
You gotta count them in.
Well, like, it's been so good to chat with you about this beautiful weak whiskey andcongratulations on it.
And it is available in Australia now.
You don't have to travel to Kentucky to get your hands on this.
can get it in Australia.
we recommend it you.
Yeah, you should definitely come over and...
If I can tell you one thing, we would love to see you in Kentucky.
You are always welcome here.
(11:44):
Come see us here at Star Hill Forum at Baker's Mart.
Henry, thanks so much.
Cheers.
Amazing.
Well, it's just so exciting HWIT in Laredo, Kentucky, Starhill Farm.
guest.
Very special guest.
We've got Dr.
Blake Layfield, master distiller, head of innovation and blending here at Makes Mark.
Thanks so much for joining us on the podcast Blake.
Thanks for having us.
Yeah, thank you so much for coming all the way from Australia.
Well, we would definitely come this far for some delicious wonderful whiskey and you'vegot a wonderful innovative new product from Makers Mark and from Yoltsin.
(00:28):
Tell us about what we've got in front of us.
do.
So what we're going to be tasting today is Starhill Farm Wheat Whiskey.
This is the first time since 1953 that we've ever created a new mash dill.
And this is celebrating nature as the maker and championing our ability to regenerate it.
Maker's Mark is known for our weeded bourbon.
(00:49):
Since 1953, we've only made one mash dill.
It's 70 % corn, 16 % soft red winter wheat, and 14 % malted barley.
Our first innovation came in 2010 with Maker's Mark 46, which is where we take CastrakeMaker's Mark, we take 10 Virgin Seared French Oak Staves, put it into that whiskey for
(01:10):
nine weeks at a cool temperature, and that articulated Bill Samuel's Junior's perfectversion of Maker's Mark.
And why I tell that story and why it's unique is that it set the guardrails for whatinnovation really means for Maker's Mark.
It means that flavor comes from nature, it comes from water, it comes from oats.
It comes from grains, comes from yeast, it comes from time.
(01:31):
How you manipulate and articulate those variables creates the diversity of products thatyou see on the shelf.
And that flavor also comes from place.
It comes from here.
I get so many people that say, wow, Blake, wouldn't it be amazing to do a Maker's Markaged in a scotch barrel or aged in an X rum barrel or extra tequila barrel?
Sure, it probably would be a really interesting flavor, but it wouldn't be somethingthat's authentic, that's transparent, that's truthful, really, for us to be leveraging
(01:57):
someone else's flavor.
and not articulated what makes ours so, special.
So in 2016, our, ah the grandson of the founders, our managing director and eighthgeneration whiskey maker, Rob Samuels, my boss, he said, how do we really highlight and
showcase the unique attributes of Maker's Mark?
And our unique attribute is our choice of wheat.
(02:19):
What wheat brings to the bourbon category is very different than rye.
Most of the category is made with rye, and it gives a different.
viscosity but also gives a different flavor profile.
So wheat gives us a sweetness and a creaminess, like a viscosity, I don't mean creamy likedairy, but a viscosity has a weight on your tongue and it gives you a spice note that's
very different than rye.
Whereas rye is black pepper and clove and grassy type.
(02:44):
Our spice is more of your holiday baking spices, your cinnamons and your nutmegs.
But how do we really showcase that to people?
Because I can wax poetically about it.
But it's best if I can show you in a liquid form.
So that actually led us to create our first ever new mash bill, which was 70 % wheat and30 % malted barley.
(03:04):
And you might say, wow, why did you pick that percentage?
That's kind of random.
Keep in mind that our mash bill for Makers Mark Classic Bourbon is 70 % corn, 16 %soft-roasted winery, 14 % malted barley.
We just removed all the corn.
What would happen if we took the corn out and really focused on our flavoring grains?
And then Rob asked another really interesting and compelling question, which is,
(03:26):
How do you know you've gone too far unless you go far enough?
And that led us to create our second new mash bill, which is 100 % malted wheat.
So Star Hill Farm Wheat Whiskey is a blend of those two mash bills aged for between sevenand eight years at cast strength.
And what we learned from that is it creates an entirely different whiskey.
(03:49):
You might wonder why it doesn't have red wax on it.
It's because it's not a bourbon.
If it's not a bourbon, it's not Maker's Mark.
But it is Star Hill Farm and this represents us continuing to push the American whiskeycategory forward.
We learned so much about the impact of grain because it is a discussion within the whiskeyindustry.
Does mash bill matter?
(04:10):
Some people say, well, the distillation, it removes all the flavor and it's all about theoak.
And what we definitively showed for us at least is that no, new make spirit and the mashbill absolutely matters.
And then we started to really think about, well, why did our
Founders Juice soft red when a wheat.
We're starting to explore varietals of grain.
(04:30):
And then as we started to go on some of that exploration, said, wow, well, if the varietalmatters, we were getting some reports of these really great varietals in different parts
of the US.
would bring them here and they would taste totally differently.
Well, does terroir matter for grains?
And then when it comes to terroir, is it just the environment around it?
Like the temperature and the rainfall?
(04:53):
or is it the actual soil, the biology of the soil and the farming conditions?
And as we started to explore all of these topics, which will be future parts of theStarhill Farm release, we started to really understand that regenerative agriculture
really not only sustains the environment, but improves the soil biology itself, which thenmakes more flavorful crops, and alleged to certify all of our new-make spirit for Maker's
(05:17):
Mark in November of 2023, is certified for regenerative agriculture.
and Starhill Farm is really what we credit for us pushing forward in that sustainablemanner.
So let's have a little taste of nature.
(05:40):
Amazing.
I love the silence, it says a lot.
It noses beautifully and we're big fans of wheat whiskies.
um It's so smooth and so different to your normal wheat whisky.
Because I think I think of a wheat whiskey tasting a little bit like how I grew up on afarm and it tastes a little bit like you talk about stepping off a header and tasting you
(06:03):
know that kind of the wheaty
Yeah, when I know other weak whiskies, I go straight back to the memories of stepping offthe header or helping my dad out on the farm.
Whereas I found with this, it's a lot more subtle and smoother.
It's beautiful.
I get a lot of caramelization on the nose.
We talked about for Maker's Mark, we have a citrusy, bright cherry type of note that tendsto express itself, but in this it's really articulating as more of like an apple type of
(06:29):
note.
So I'm getting like a lot of an apple note and as it goes into the palette, you get thatcreaminess, that viscosity is really amplified and it's almost like a baked apple crunch
on the mid-palette.
That cascade is in some nice like toasted pecan notes and you get that spice that Imentioned.
Yes, really coming out those baking spices quite nicely on the back end.
(06:50):
Nice warmth.
uh
I think I'm surprised by how close it tastes to, it doesn't taste like you saw it, but itdoes taste like a grape bourbon almost in a way that surprised me.
I was expecting something that was going to taste quite like completely different productthat I was nervous I wouldn't like it if I'm being really honest.
I was worried, oh, weak whiskey, is it going to be really that good?
(07:11):
But this is unbelievable.
And those fruit characteristics as well are so prevalent.
It's like a lovely fruity, rich, yet delicious mouthfeel.
It's also so good.
When you started the process, were you surprised by the way that it kind of came throughand as you were kind of tasting it, as it was kind of aging, were you surprised by how
(07:31):
We honestly didn't know how it was going to taste, but that was why we did the work.
mean, some experiments work, some of them don't.
But that's why it's called innovation.
um But just during the fermentation, when you're standing over those fermenters, we've gotour eight traditional Cypress fermenters that are open top, and you can really smell
what's happening.
(07:52):
We knew this was going to be a really amazing whiskey, and as the new-make spirit cameoff...
We knew we had something there.
it goes, where you're getting some of the commonalities is it is still within the Americanwhiskey context.
It does still leverage virgin charred American oak casks as the primary bit.
Now we did also do some experimental casks.
So there's American oak, there's French oak, there's hybrid barrels, and there's somebarrels that are looking at surface area in there because this is a wheat whiskey.
(08:17):
It's not a bourbon.
We didn't know how it was gonna mature.
And unlike in Maker's Mark where we rotate our barrels for consistency, we do not.
rotate these.
So these are actually coming from the warehouse as nature is creating it.
Okay, opens up a lot of opportunities for us to blend a lot of diversity of flavorprofiles for us.
um But the other thing to point out for this, this actually does carry the world's firstestate whiskey certification.
(08:42):
And what that means to your customers and consumers is that we make this product, um thatwe mill it, we mash it, we ferment it, we distill it, we barrel it, we bottle it at this
distillery.
which is actually quite uncommon in today's whiskey industry where there's NDPs ornon-distillery producers where they're buying bulk from someone else, putting their label
(09:03):
on it.
So this showcases transparency and authenticity to your customers and consumers.
It also means that two thirds of the grains come from within a 75 mile radius of thedistillery.
I know miles don't translate to kilometers, but it's a short distance around thedistillery.
So you get a flavor of place.
You're getting sustainability.
You're getting that flavor of terroir.
um in that real impact.
(09:24):
So that's what that means.
And we're carrying this certification is actually through an independent third party ofthe University of Kentucky is a global whiskey certification.
So we'll actually start to see this coming out of Ireland, Scotland, Mexico, the US andJapan coming out very soon.
We know there's many other people that are coming out with this.
So you get to be part of all of the process.
And I also heard someone mention that the proceeds from the bottle go to help other, likethe regenerative farmers.
(09:49):
That's correct.
So we've got the million acre initiative where I just mentioned why we think regenerativeagriculture is the way not only from an environmental standpoint, but because we think it
makes the best flavored whiskey.
We're all about making great whiskey in the most culturally relevant and sustainable waypossible.
using these proceeds to propel regenerative agriculture forward because if a brand likeMaker's Mark can do it, any brand can do it.
(10:14):
Amazing.
There's some cool things as well.
I know we're running out of time again, but there's some cool things on this bottle thatI've noticed.
One of them is the fact that the bottom edge is hand torn, which is kind of a, I imagine anod to Margie's original vision.
The other one is that the Star Hill farm, the icons gone to eight.
(10:35):
you tell us what the story is with that?
That's correct.
So on maker's mark, anything with the red wax, it's S with the Roman numeral four.
So Samuel's stands for the S and fourth for fourth generation whiskey maker.
And if you ask Rob, he'll say, well, that was Margie's only mistake because technically hewas the sixth generation.
(10:56):
He was the fourth generation that was registered, but they had two unregistered distillersin their lineage.
So it has changed to S8 to reflect Rob.
So this is Rob's vision.
um of whiskey and really pushing the narrative for American whiskey and the story ofMaker's Mark forward.
So it has gone from S with the Roman numeral four to S with the Roman numeral eightbecause Rob Samuels is our eighth generation whiskey maker, including those two.
(11:22):
I was included too.
uh
You gotta count them in.
Well, like, it's been so good to chat with you about this beautiful weak whiskey andcongratulations on it.
And it is available in Australia now.
You don't have to travel to Kentucky to get your hands on this.
can get it in Australia.
we recommend it you.
Yeah, you should definitely come over and...
If I can tell you one thing, we would love to see you in Kentucky.
You are always welcome here.
(11:44):
Come see us here at Star Hill Forum at Baker's Mart.
Henry, thanks so much.
Cheers.
Amazing.
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