Cartoon stick figure standing next to a bar having liquor bottles with wax seals positioned on the counter — representing a blog post about the Maker’s Mark Wax Seal position marks trademark registrations.

Trademark: Maker’s Mark Wax Seal

First Used: 1958

First Registered: 1985

Current Owner: MAKER'S MARK DISTILLERY, PBC [1]

Trademark Type: non-traditional trademark; trade dress; position mark

Primarily Associated With: whisky [2]

Brief (and likely incomplete) History [3]:

The MAKER’S MARK® brand is often credited with completely changing the American Whiskey market, including how whiskey was marketed. One of the big visual differentiators? The Maker’s Mark Wax Seal position mark, with its distinctive drips of red wax positioned on the neck of whisky bottles.

When Maker’s Mark founder Bill Samuels Sr. first set out to create the brand, he wanted to create a whisky that would stand out. For the taste, he trusted himself. But for the look and brand, he turned to his wife Margie Samuels, a talented businessman (and artist) in her own right Inspired by the wax-dipped cognac bottles she admired and the old-world hallmarks she collected on English pewter, Margie wanted a bottle that looked handcrafted before anyone even tasted the bourbon.

She began experimenting in the kitchen by melting wax in a deep fryer and dipping bottles at different angles and depths until she perfected the now-familiar cascading drip. The final wax recipe itself was engineered to be more durable and flexible than traditional sealing wax. The color red? It was chosen because it was an uncommon color for wax at the time and it jumped off the shelf in a way no other whiskey packaging did at the time. The final result was the Maker’s Mark Wax Seal that everyone knows and loves today, with its dramatic, hand-dipped look that instantly signals craftsmanship and quality. Margie’s vision was so influential that she later became the first woman directly tied to a distillery inducted into the Bourbon Hall of Fame.

Today, the Maker’s Mark Wax Seal is registered as a non-traditional trademark for a variety of products, including whiskey [4] and steak sauce [5]. The Maker’s Mark Wax Seal is also a registered non-traditional trademark for various configurations, including a single wax dip [6] (found on most bottles), a triple wax dip [7] (usually different colors on special edition bottles), a double wax dip [8] (also usually different colors on special edition bottles), and a wax dip that extends on to the base of the bottle [9] (known as extra dip bottles). Regardless of the product or wax style, every bottle is still hand-dipped today and if you visit the distillery, you can even dip your own!