What to Mix With Maker's Mark: 8 Mixers That Suit a Wheated Bourbon
Maker’s Mark is the bourbon people order when they don’t drink bourbon.
I saw it every weekend behind the bar. Someone’s date wants “a whiskey thing, nothing harsh.” You reach for the red wax. Nine times out of ten they finish the drink and order another. The tenth one wanted vodka all along.
There’s a reason it works. And once you know the reason, you know what to pour into it.
Why Maker’s Mark mixes so easily
Bourbon is mostly corn. The rest of the grain bill is the flavor knob. Most distilleries use rye as the second grain. Rye brings pepper, spice, a bit of a bite on the finish.
Maker’s uses red winter wheat instead. That’s what “wheated bourbon” means. Wheat is softer. Rounder. More bread than pepper. So the whiskey leans on the caramel and vanilla it picks up from new charred oak, and there’s not much spice fighting back.
It’s bottled at 90 proof. Strong enough to show up in a tall glass. Not so hot that it scorches a two-ingredient drink.
Here’s what that means behind the bar. A rye-heavy bourbon has opinions. Put it with a sweet mixer and you get a tug-of-war. Maker’s doesn’t argue. It goes where the mixer takes it. That’s great with soda. It’s a weakness in a stirred drink, where you want the whiskey to push back. More on that below.
The mixers, ranked by how often I poured them
Ginger ale. The best of the lot. Ginger’s mild heat stands in for the rye spice Maker’s doesn’t have. Two ounces over ice, four to five of ginger ale, a lemon wedge squeezed in. If you want it closer to a cocktail, try the Glicktail: Maker’s, a little sugar syrup, lemon juice, topped with ginger ale. It’s basically a whiskey sour with bubbles. Our ginger ale drinks page has the rest of that family.
Coke. Everyone’s first bourbon drink. Fine. Go 1 to 3, not 1 to 5, or you’re drinking Coke with a rumor of whiskey in it. Lime wedge helps. A lot. And if you want to have fun with it, the Brandon and Will’s Coke Float puts Maker’s and Coca-Cola over a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Dessert. Don’t overthink it.
Ginger beer. Spicier and drier than ginger ale. Maker’s, ginger beer, lime. That’s a Kentucky Mule. I like it better than the vodka version. The wheat sweetness rounds off the ginger burn.
Lemonade. Underrated. I ran a patio one September where half the tickets were bourbon lemonades. Nobody complained. Lemon and soft bourbon is a summer porch drink that works fine in October. For a crowd, the Makers Mark Punch goes bigger: Maker’s, a can of frozen lemonade concentrate and beer. Sounds like a frat party. Tastes like a shandy that learned to drink.
Dr Pepper. Cherry, vanilla, some kind of spice nobody can name. All things Maker’s already has. Same 1 to 3 ratio as Coke. I’d take this over bourbon and Coke most nights.
Root beer. Same logic as Dr Pepper with more vanilla and wintergreen. The Eskay Slammer is Maker’s, ice-cold root beer and a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. A grown-up float.
Coffee. Hot or iced. An ounce and a half in a mug of black coffee, a spoon of brown sugar, cream floated on top if you want it. The caramel in the whiskey and the roast in the coffee just line up.
Soda water. For people who actually want to taste the bourbon. Tall glass, lots of ice, a long lemon peel. This is the test. If you don’t like Maker’s and soda, you don’t like Maker’s. No shame in that.
Lemon-lime soda deserves a footnote. Sprite or Sierra Mist works, but it’s sweet on sweet. Add something sharp. The Cassidy Mist adds triple sec and Sierra Mist, which pulls it toward a fizzy orange sour.
Where Maker’s struggles: stirred drinks
Here’s the opinion people don’t like. Maker’s makes a soft Manhattan.
A Manhattan is whiskey, sweet vermouth and bitters. The vermouth is sweet and herbal. You want a whiskey that bites back. Rye does. A high-rye bourbon does. Maker’s mostly just agrees with the vermouth.
That doesn’t mean skip it. It means adjust. The Jockey’s Choice Manhattan is the straight version: Maker’s, sweet vermouth, Angostura. Make it 2.5 to 1 instead of 2 to 1. Add an extra dash of bitters. Now it holds up.
Or lean into the softness. The Apple Manhattan swaps the vermouth for apple liqueur. The Manhattan for Rome uses Frangelico. Both are sweet, nutty or fruity drinks that wouldn’t work with a spicy bourbon. They work with this one.
Old Fashioned? Same deal. Go heavier on bitters. I had a regular who ordered Maker’s Old Fashioneds with four dashes, never three, and he was right. Our piece on the best bitters for an Old Fashioned gets into which ones give a wheated bourbon the spine it’s missing.
A couple of weirder ones
The Haymaker is Maker’s with triple sec, dry vermouth and lime juice. Sour, dry, a little orange. Shake it hard. It’s the one drink here that most people haven’t heard of and most people like.
Skip anything that pools four bourbons in one glass. There are a few in the database. They exist to win bets.
Stuff people asked me across the bar
Is Maker’s Mark good for mixing? Yes. That’s mostly what it’s for. The wheat keeps it soft, so it doesn’t clash with sweet sodas.
Maker’s and Coke or Maker’s and ginger ale? Ginger ale. Every time. The ginger gives back the spice that the wheat took away.
What ratio? One part Maker’s to three parts mixer for colas. One to two or one to three for ginger ale and soda water. Go stronger if the mixer is sharp, weaker if it’s sweet.
Other bottles in the cabinet get the same treatment in our guide on what to mix with whiskey. The odd sodas in your fridge? I’d run them through CocktailBuilder. It knows which drinks they already make with the red wax bottle.
Last modified on October 11, 2026
