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Every little detail, down to the bottle-shaped cut-outs in the
decorative window shades has been seen to. It is said that
Marge Samuels -- Bill Samuels Sr.' s wife, and the same person who
designed their bottle, logo, and red-wax dipping style, personally
designed the grounds with the idea of entertaining visitors.

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We arrive as one huge busload and split into two groups for the tour.
 

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Our group is lucky to have Dave Pudlo, speaking here
to ADI guide Amber, as our host at Maker's Mark.
For a group as knowledgeable -- and curious -- as ours
it takes a guide with a very special type of personality
to be successful, and Dave made "believers" of many
folks today who "thought" they were familiar with Maker's
Mark bourbon. I will happily include myself among them.
 

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And speaking of "happy", one of Dave's qualities is his
unrestrained delight in telling his stories and explaining
how his product differs from others'. I forget exactly what he
is "measuring and comparing" here, but everyone in the group
laughed at his way of delivering his point

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The bottling line is always an exciting part of a distillery tour,
regardless of who the visitors are, but for a busload of people whose
lifetime dream is to be able to make enough whiskey that would
require automated bottling, what a fascinating experience this must be.

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