Drink recipes, when carefully curated, are timeless. That’s especially true when they come from one of the most iconic whiskey and spirits companies in the world, Maker’s Mark. To that end, flavor building and mixology are something of an art form. It takes a lot to develop a successful beverage, let alone an entire bar program. So, when we had the chance to talk to an industry expert, like a Maker’s Mark cocktails pro, we didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation.
Continuing from our original visit and introduction to the Maker’s Mark distillery, we’re setting aside time to try various unique cocktails, specifically from the brand. One in particular that expert conversationalist Dan Gaul has tried is the Jam Cake Old Fashion recipe. We’ll drop the ingredients below so you can make it yourself. Also here to discuss cocktail innovations and mixology is the Senior Cocktail Creator at Maker’s Mark, Leslie Krockenberger. Whether you’re a spirits enthusiast who can never turn down a good cocktail or just curious about the behind-the-scenes ingredients of mixology, let’s just say you need to see this.
Learning about Krockenberger’s mixology journey
Every career starts with a journey, so naturally, Gaul asks Krockenberger about her taste-building origins.
“Like anything else with building flavor, if you were fortunate enough to grow up in a household that had a lot of cooking [that’s where it starts],” she says. “I’m from Texas, so everybody in my family from the great, great, greats on, always cooked, and that was something that was shared. So, I’ve always had an interest in cooking and flavor, and I was always taught that food is what brings people together, and as you get older, you realize that drinks are how they celebrate and mark that occasion. I think it was a natural progression for me.”
Despite being a more obvious career choice, sticking with flavor-related tasks, Krockenberger explains that it’s not something she intended to “do forever.” In other words, she hadn’t initially settled upon this being her primary focus. For her, it was a reliable way “to make money,” and understandably so. People love good drinks.
“It was a natural progression for me.”
“When I started to actually realize that I cared more about how something turned out, that I wanted to perfect that thing, and that I was gonna do the research into the background, that’s really the difference between working at a dive somewhere and being a bartender, which is what you do at a dive bar, versus mixology,” she says. “[It’s] really that deeper-seated passion, that understanding of history, all of those things that led you to the places that are there.”
Krockenberger also explains how it’s a fairly linear jump from thinking about food flavors and how those mix to adapting them for a liquid format.
“I think that it was just something that I had a natural proclivity for, and I see flavor in a very different way,” she says. “For me, I’m constantly formulating how something is going to taste in liquid form. When you’re drinking wine or beer… you’re using flavor notes that are food descriptors, and so it’s a natural progression for you to take those things that are familiar, which are food, and move them over into a liquid side. What’s funny is for a lot of people, there’s a hard delineation there where they’re like, ‘I don’t understand the liquid side of things,’ but really, we’re using a lot of the same concepts, methods, and techniques.”
To Maker’s Mark
Throughout her career, Krockenberger developed the mantra: “Creativity is the discipline to forget all that you know.” Her staunch focus on individual ingredients in a cocktail, accentuating those rudimentary flavors, is a major part of her near-endless creativity.
Earlier in her career, Krockenberger was at Saint Arnold Brewing Co., which allowed her to indulge in her craft of mixing cocktails, with an added background in craft beer. Eventually, in Houston, Texas, she created Triniti’s first cocktail program and has been credited with bringing craft cocktails to the city, fostering an entire community around the appreciation for modern spirits.
“The way that I learn about places, if I’ve never been there, or when I moved here [to Kentucky] is through old cookbooks.”
In Chicago, she spent time at The Aviary, the James Beard award-winning cocktail bar that shares a kitchen with Michelin-starred Alinea Group’s Next. However, in 2020, she moved away from Texas to join the Maker’s Mark team in Kentucky, and the rest is history.
The Jam Cake Old Fashion recipe
Want to make the drink Gaul and Krockenberger are talking about? Here’s the recipe:
Jam Cake Old Fashion ingredients:
- Two ounces of 2024 WF Heart Release
- 0.5 ounces of Giffard or other high-quality Crème de Mure Blackberry Liqueur
- 0.5 ounces mixed 2:1 of Turbinado Syrup (see below on how to make) made with a Chai Spiced Tea Bag
- Two dashes of Cacao Angostura Bitters
To make the Turbinado Syrup and Chai Tea correctly: Mix two parts Turbinado to 1 part hot water, with 1 Chai tea bag per 8 ounces of total volume. Allow the tea bag to steep in the hot water before adding to the sugar. Be sure to refrigerate the syrup when not in use — it should last for about two weeks properly chilled.
And here’s how you make the beverage:
- Start by building the ingredients in a mixing vessel.
- Add ice and stir down.
- Strain into a Rocks glass, and add LFI (Large Format Ice).
- Garnish with Blackberry and manicured orange peel, expressed orange peel.
Enjoy!
What it takes to build a delicious, authentically flavored cocktail recipe
Krockenberger takes a moment during the interview to share her inspiration behind the Jam Cake Old Fashion cocktail and why it holds a place close to her heart.
“The way that I learn about places, if I’ve never been there, or when I moved here [to Kentucky] is through old cookbooks. During COVID, obviously, there wasn’t a whole lot going on, so a few places were available for you to roam through, and a lot of those were antique shops,” she says. “I went to antique shops and bought a bunch of cookbooks, and I tried to learn about the history of Kentucky cuisine, so I knew what sort of flavor profiles that I was gonna be making here on site.”
She took time to learn the local flavors, which tells you a lot more than you’d think about the local area. In many cases, the flavors or ingredients are influenced by what’s available or prominent.
“It took me three years to nail that recipe.”
“In Texas, everything’s spicy, everything’s like Margaritas, you know, we know what flavors to expect there. Here, I wasn’t quite as familiar,” she admits.
From there, it was about experimenting with those cookbooks to find a signature or iconic recipe that worked for Kentucky — as you undoubtedly know is the home of Maker’s Mark.
“So, I discovered what jam cake was, and I had it in a few different cookbooks. So I made a version of one the first time, and I was like, ‘Okay, this is good,'” she says. “Then, we had a benefit here at the distillery for someone raising money, and there was one on an auction table, and I picked it up, and it weighed like 40 pounds, and I was like, ‘Oh! This is a jam cake.'”
Having gotten a true taste of the delicious dessert, the recipe-building naturally progressed from there, just like Krockenberger’s career.
“Ultimately, jam cake is, a spiced cake served in a bundt cake form,” she explained. “Sugar was very expensive and hard to come by back in the day, so oftentimes, they would cut the sugar for a cake recipe with jam. Blackberries are in peak season in July and are the star of Kentucky, so a traditional Kentucky jam cake is made with blackberry jam. Then, they had this caramel icing that’s drizzled on top.”
You can start to get a feel for how she builds out the recipe using iconic flavors. “I kind of mess with flavors, and the way I was going to impart those flavors.” As she proclaims, it took her about three years to come up with the final recipe after lots of experimentation and hard work. Krockenberger even calls back to “ruining a lot of batches,” before landing on the recipe Gaul tested on camera.
It’s a lesson in humility and perseverance, but it certainly shows how much love and effort goes into things like this. It wasn’t just a recipe that was haphazardly thrown together, and more importantly, you can taste the difference when you mix that drink. Why not give it a try and see for yourself?
We highly recommend watching the full interview — there’s a lot of expertise that Leslie Krockenberger has to impart to the community. Even if you’re just an enthusiast who loves to drink and experience the cocktails, you’ll earn a new appreciation for them.
