Review #267: Star Hill Farm American Wheat Whisky (2026)

MASH BILL and AGE: Blend of:

• 62% of 7-8 yr whiskey made with 100% malted wheat
• 38% of 7-8 yr whiskey made with a mash bill of 70% wheat and 30% malted barley
• Derived mash bill: 62% malted wheat, 27% wheat, 11% malted barley

PROOF: 116.4

COST: $100 for 700mL bottle (Maker’s Mark Distillery).

Maker’s Mark continues their Star Hill Farm wheat whisky release for the second year, this time with a lot more of the malted wheat whiskey in the blend as well as using hard red and hard white wheat instead of the traditional soft red winter wheat that Maker’s Mark is famous for. These tweaks are intended to make the 2026 release darker and more complex with amplified fruit notes compared to the 2025 release. While I enjoyed the 2025 release, darker, more complex, and more fruit notes are all things I love to hear! However, I feel like there hasn’t been enough talk (by Maker’s Mark or otherwise) about the increased malted wheat content and the use of hard red and hard white wheats and how they impact the whiskey. I don’t believe these were trivial changes, so get ready to explore this with me!

Reviewed neat in a Glencairn.

APPEARANCE: Dark, reddish mahogany (1.7), medium bodied fast legs at first, with some thick, slow secondary legs forming later.

NOSE: Complex and evolving. At first, I’m hit with bruleed brown sugar, cherry extract, and honeyed orchard fruits. As I continue to nose it throughout the sip there are other notes that make an appearance, sometimes outright stealing the limelight. Caramelized oak, toasted vanilla beans, spiced figs, and a bright citrus note almost like a lemon Febreze air freshener. There is a fatty, homey note that lingers in the background as well such as buttered bread and toasted nuts.

PALATE: Soft, oily mouthfeel. Cherry pie filling, burnt white sugar, charred oak, a state fair caramel apple, and a squeeze of fresh lemon make my taste buds go into a frenzy at first. A nice baking spice really sinks into the back half of the palate along with brown sugar coated toasted nuts. The longer the whiskey sits on my palate I notice a Ghirardelli caramel filled milk chocolate note develops. With a good chew the fruit notes really come to life: strawberry, cherry, fig, and black currant.

FINISH: Long, dry finish. The notes on the palate carry over to the finish quite well. The dark, red fruit notes in particular, accompanied by heavily caramelized sugars. The fresher notes of citrus and orchard fruit quickly disappear, while tannic, drying oak takes its place. Numbing cinnamon and spiced, earthy nuts are along for the ride with the tannic oak to the very end.

RATING: 9.0/10

OVERALL: The complexity of this whiskey is very interesting. It has a wonderful nose and palate that without digging into tasting notes would still be a top honors whiskey in my book – the dopamine hit that the overall profile gives alone is enough to tell you it’s special without having to dive into the tasting notes. But when you really start digging into it and pulling back the layers, you start to see how impressive this whiskey is. While it scored high on the nose, a little lower on the palate, and lower yet on the finish, if I were to point to one thing holding it back it would be a slight astringentness that carried throughout the sip. While a couple drops of water helped eliminate it on the palate and finish, it still was present on the nose. Perhaps a little more time in barrels would have eliminated it, or perhaps a slight dilution for finishing proof as noted by my two drops of water added to a pour. Easily a top contender for my whiskey of the year for 2026.

Behind the Bottle

Let’s dive into the science behind this bottle. There are two things we’ll explore: the increased use of malted wheat and the use of “hard” wheat instead of “soft” wheat. These two aspects work together quite well as you’ll see.

With a quick online search for “hard versus soft wheat,” you’ll see this is a question that entertains bread making forums with some regularity. What it boils down to is hard wheat contains more protein than soft wheat, and soft wheat contains more starch (a roughly 4-5% delta). In the baking world, gluten is of the most concern; the higher the protein content, the more gluten can form, and the stronger the dough would be. Therefore, hard wheat flour makes better bread doughs, whereas soft wheat flour makes better pastry goods when a more delicate crumb is desired.

But in whiskey making we don’t care about gluten. As a matter of fact, if your Celiac friend thinks they can’t drink whiskey because it’s made with grains therefore must have gluten, you can let them know they can have as much whiskey as they want because the distillation process leaves all the gluten behind! For whiskey making, we’re more concerned with how the protein and starch content of the grains affect the fermentation or distillation processes and overall flavor profile.

During fermentation, a higher starch content in the mash can yield more fermentable sugars, but the starch needs to be converted into sugars first by use of enzymes that are provided by…you guessed it, malted grains! This is why you will rarely see a whiskey made without some amount and type of malted grain in the mash bill. When you don’t see a malted grain in the mash bill, it’s likely the distiller used some sort of added enzyme to help convert complex starches into fermentable sugars.

Modern whiskey science suggests a relatively low percentage of the mash bill needs to be malted grains to generate enough enzymes to convert the starches in the rest of the mash bill. You may notice a lot of mash bills contain single digit percentages of a malted grain, and this is why – its not doing a lot to change the flavor, but just providing enough enzymes to do work on the other grains. So, when I see mash bills that go higher in malted grains than about 10-15%, I normally think it’s not just the enzymes that the distiller desires, but the flavor profile that the malted grains provide as well.

In the case of malted wheat, particularly “hard” wheat because it is high in protein compared to other grains, it’s notable that the enzymes from malting break down the proteins into amino acids as well as converting starch into reducing sugars. This differs from malted barley because barley is low in protein content, therefore there are not as many amino acids created and mostly just sugars. This blend of amino acids and reducing sugars sets the stage for a Maillard reaction. You’ve probably heard of the Maillard reaction for cooking, particularly for searing red meat, but what is the Maillard reaction?

The Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars. It is what gives foods a distinct savory, umami, “browned” flavor. Think seared pieces of meat, the browned/burnt part of any type of dough from bread to cookies, toasted marshmallow, etc. It is a chemical reaction that doesn’t require enzymes but does require increased temperatures. While it becomes more rapid at temperatures of around 300°F, it can occur at lower temperatures less vigorously.

So, in the malting process, the wheat berries are allowed to start germination which creates a pool of amino acids and reducing sugars as proteins and starches break down, both of which are required for the Maillard reaction. Then the malting kiln temperature is increased to stop the germination of wheat berries. For wheat, a happy temp is around 200°F where it preserves a decent number of enzymes while creating some Maillard character.

What this all means for Star Hill Farm 2026 release is that the use of “hard” wheat and a high malted wheat content creates more savory, umami, toasty, and tannic notes without the need for a charred barrel to do all the work. Roasted nuts, chocolate, toasted bread, light tannic and spice – these are all flavors that can be provided by the hard wheat and the malted wheat properties of this whiskey. Meanwhile, the whiskey still uses soft red wheat and malted barley to provide a delicate sweetness. Maker’s Mark executed the blend phenomenally to balance all of these notes quite well. If you’re able to, compare the 2025 release side-by-side with the 2026 release and I think you’ll notice the difference that the hard and malted wheat provide quite quickly.


1 | Disgusting | see my 1/10 ratings

2 | Poor | see my 2/10 ratings

3 | Bad | see my 3/10 ratings

4 | Sub-par | see my 4/10 ratings

5 | Good | see my 5/10 ratings

6 | Very Good | see my 6/10 ratings

7 | Great | see my 7/10 ratings

8 | Excellent | see my 8/10 ratings

9 | Incredible | see my 9/10 ratings

10 | Perfect | see my 10/10 ratings