Maker's Mark: the plain 700 is the one priced right

Line the three of them up and the cheapest, plainest bottle is also the one priced closest to its rivals. The standard Kentucky Straight in the seven-hundred is $57, only about $8 over a peer median of $49, roughly 16 percent. Trade up to the litre or the oakier 46 and the gap widens quickly. So the entry bottle is the honest buy, and the upgrades are where you begin paying for the name. The brand's middle price this week sits at $75, which already tells you Maker's asks a little more than the shelf around it before you have chosen a single bottle.

A word on what this whisky is, because it explains a lot about how it drinks. Maker's is a wheated bourbon: red winter wheat takes the place of the rye most Kentucky distillers reach for as their flavouring grain. Rye brings pepper and a dry, spicy snap. Wheat brings the opposite, a soft and bready sweetness, so a wheated bourbon tends to taste rounder and gentler than its neighbours. That style is the whole personality of the brand, and it runs through all three bottles here.

Start with the seven-hundred, because at $57 against comparable bottles near $49 it is the closest thing to a fair price the range offers. This is the bourbon that made the distillery: soft vanilla, caramel and honey, a butterscotch roundness, a little floral lift at the top. Nothing about it is showy. It is the everyday pour Maker's was built to be, the one you keep on the counter rather than the shelf, and this week it reads like one. If you have never tried the brand, this is where it starts and where it should.

It is worth remembering how simple this whisky is under the marketing. One recipe, one age, no special editions crowding the core: the standard bottle and the 46 are the same wheated spirit, one of them merely finished with extra oak. The famous hand-dipped red wax is the theatre; the whisky inside is deliberately consistent, made to taste the same bottle after bottle. That steadiness is a real virtue in a bourbon you plan to pour rather than hoard, and it is another mark in favour of the plain seven-hundred. You are not missing a secret better version by buying the cheap one. You are getting the same careful, soft, wheated whisky the distillery has always made, at the keenest price it comes in.

The litre is the bottle that looks like a saving and mostly isn't. It is $80, and against other litre-format bourbons near $49 that works out to about $31 over, roughly 63 percent, the widest gap of the three. Same wheated spirit inside, just more of it. The bigger format tempts you into feeling thrifty, but measured against its own peers it is the dearest way to buy this whisky rather than the cheapest. If you are refilling for a party and want the volume in one bottle, fair enough. As value, the arithmetic does not favour it, and it is worth doing the sums per drink before the size wins you over.

Then the 46, the one genuine step up in character. It is $83 against a peer median of $54, about $29 over, roughly 54 percent. Maker's 46 takes the finished spirit and rests it in the barrel with seared French oak staves dropped inside, and you can taste what the extra wood does: more oak, a darker caramel, a bump of baking spice riding over the familiar vanilla and honey. The model reads that oak clearly, putting charred, corn-and-char character at the front of its profile where the standard bottle leads with softer spice. It is a genuinely different, fuller dram, and plenty of drinkers will happily pay for it. Just know the premium over comparable bottles is real, and it is the staves you are buying, not a keener ticket.

There is a tidy pattern here once you see it. The plain seven-hundred is priced almost like its peers; the two bottles that ask you to spend up, the upsized litre and the oak-finished 46, are also the two that drift furthest from what the shelf around them charges. Wheated bourbon is a soft, crowd-pleasing style, and Maker's makes a good one at every rung. What it does not do this week is reward you for trading up.

So what goes in the trolley. For an everyday wheated bourbon, the standard seven-hundred at $57 is the clear pick: the real Maker's flavour at the one price in the range that reads honestly against its rivals. If you love the oakier, spicier profile and want something with more grip, the 46 earns its place, so long as you buy it knowing you are paying a clear premium over comparable bottles for those staves. Leave the litre unless the format itself is the point, because per drink it is the widest markup of the three.

None of this is a knock on the whisky. Maker's Mark makes a genuinely good soft bourbon and always has. The only question is where your money works hardest, and this week the answer is the humblest bottle on the shelf: the plain red-wax seven-hundred, priced like it wants to be poured rather than admired.