Kentucky’s famous red wax-sealed bourbon is heading to luxury department store shelves with one of its rarest UK releases to date.
Maker’s Mark has unveiled its first-ever collaboration with Selfridges, resulting in a bespoke Private Selection bourbon created exclusively for the retailer.
Known as Selfridges Barrel No. 1 2026, the whiskey is limited to just 258 bottles, making it one of the more tightly allocated Maker’s Mark expressions to arrive in the UK in recent years.
The whiskey begins life as fully matured Maker’s Mark Cask Strength bourbon before undergoing the distillery’s Private Selection finishing process. This allows partners to tailor the final flavour profile through the use of ten specially selected oak finishing staves, chosen from five distinct stave styles developed by the Kentucky distillery.
The whiskey is limited to just 258 bottles, making it one of the more tightly allocated Maker’s Mark expressions…
Inside Maker’s Mark’s new Selfridges collaboration
For this inaugural collaboration, the Selfridges buying team travelled through the Private Selection process themselves, selecting a bespoke combination of staves designed to create a flavour profile unique to the retailer.
Bottled at cask strength, the whiskey arrives at a robust 55.4% ABV and is presented non-chill filtered to preserve its texture and concentration of flavour.
In the glass, Selfridges Barrel No. 1 2026 reportedly opens with warming spice and dark fruit notes before moving into familiar waves of vanilla sweetness and toasted oak. Rich oak character then builds across the palate, leading into a long and lingering finish.
Maker’s Mark recommends enjoying it neat or with a single cube of ice to allow the whiskey’s layers of spice, fruit and oak to gradually reveal themselves.
Commenting on the collaboration, Rob Samuels, eighth-generation whisky maker and managing director of Maker’s Mark, said: “The Private Selection programme allows us to share our obsessive approach to flavour discovery, inviting partners who refuse to compromise on quality to shape their own perfect expression of Maker’s Mark.
“Selfridges brought that exact, uncompromising vision to our stave-finishing process. Together, we ignored the easy path to create a bourbon that is intensely personal, meticulously crafted, and entirely unique within our series.”
The limited-edition bourbon is available now through Selfridges stores in London, Manchester and Birmingham, as well as online via Selfridges, priced at £91.99.
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Canary Wharf workers, consider this your most important lunch meeting of the week. New pub The Tallyman is celebrating its arrival in the Wharf by giving away 200 free lobster rolls worth £18 each on Thursday 17 September. From midday until 3pm, the first 200 people to visit its outdoor Tallyman Seafood Shack will get…
The Luxe Review 
Kentucky’s famous red wax-sealed bourbon is heading to luxury department store shelves with one of its rarest UK releases to date.
Maker’s Mark has unveiled its first-ever collaboration with Selfridges, resulting in a bespoke Private Selection bourbon created exclusively for the retailer.
Known as Selfridges Barrel No. 1 2026, the whiskey is limited to just 258 bottles, making it one of the more tightly allocated Maker’s Mark expressions to arrive in the UK in recent years.
The whiskey begins life as fully matured Maker’s Mark Cask Strength bourbon before undergoing the distillery’s Private Selection finishing process. This allows partners to tailor the final flavour profile through the use of ten specially selected oak finishing staves, chosen from five distinct stave styles developed by the Kentucky distillery.
Inside Maker’s Mark’s new Selfridges collaboration
For this inaugural collaboration, the Selfridges buying team travelled through the Private Selection process themselves, selecting a bespoke combination of staves designed to create a flavour profile unique to the retailer.
Bottled at cask strength, the whiskey arrives at a robust 55.4% ABV and is presented non-chill filtered to preserve its texture and concentration of flavour.
In the glass, Selfridges Barrel No. 1 2026 reportedly opens with warming spice and dark fruit notes before moving into familiar waves of vanilla sweetness and toasted oak. Rich oak character then builds across the palate, leading into a long and lingering finish.
Maker’s Mark recommends enjoying it neat or with a single cube of ice to allow the whiskey’s layers of spice, fruit and oak to gradually reveal themselves.
Commenting on the collaboration, Rob Samuels, eighth-generation whisky maker and managing director of Maker’s Mark, said: “The Private Selection programme allows us to share our obsessive approach to flavour discovery, inviting partners who refuse to compromise on quality to shape their own perfect expression of Maker’s Mark.
“Selfridges brought that exact, uncompromising vision to our stave-finishing process. Together, we ignored the easy path to create a bourbon that is intensely personal, meticulously crafted, and entirely unique within our series.”
The limited-edition bourbon is available now through Selfridges stores in London, Manchester and Birmingham, as well as online via Selfridges, priced at £91.99.
The Macallan puts Valdespino sherry wine casks to work with milestone Time: Space 20 Year Old whisky
Introducing The Macallan Time: Space Sherry Cask, the first whisky to be finished in casks seasoned with Valdespino sherry wine, from The Macallan’s bodega in Jerez de la Frontera. The third release in The Macallan’s Time: Space collection, the liquid’s initial maturation took place on The Macallan Estate in Speyside in predominantly European oak sherry-seasoned…
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Beer has Oktoberfest. Wine has Beaujolais Nouveau Day. Now whisky has a date of its own. Or, at least, The Scotch Malt Whisky Society would like it to. The Society has launched The Whisky Equinox, an annual occasion intended to mark the point in the year when cooler evenings arrive and whisky drinkers start reaching…
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Canary Wharf workers, consider this your most important lunch meeting of the week. New pub The Tallyman is celebrating its arrival in the Wharf by giving away 200 free lobster rolls worth £18 each on Thursday 17 September. From midday until 3pm, the first 200 people to visit its outdoor Tallyman Seafood Shack will get…
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