Kelsey Plum's Yam Jam Bourbon Is the Celebrity Release That Actually Earns Its Shelf Space
The bourbon world has a cynicism problem when it comes to celebrity bottles. For every release that shows genuine engagement with the craft, there are a dozen that amount to little more than a famous face attached to a contract and a marketing budget. Drinkers have learned to be skeptical, and rightfully so. That earned skepticism makes what Kelsey Plum has done with Maker's Mark all the more worth examining — because Yam Jam is not that kind of release. It is, by any honest measure, one of the most compelling athlete-brand collaborations the spirits industry has produced.
Who Is Kelsey Plum, and Why Does It Matter?
Maker's Mark has teamed up with two-time WNBA champion and Olympic gold medalist Kelsey Plum to release a limited-edition Private Selection bourbon called "Yam Jam by Kelsey Plum." Plum is not a marginal figure riding a moment of cultural visibility. She is, by any competitive measure, one of the premier guards in women's basketball — a player whose résumé includes back-to-back championships and Olympic gold, credentials that require the same relentless discipline that serious bourbon production demands.
That personal history is not incidental to the whiskey. It comes as a surprise to absolutely no one that the former University of Washington legend is a bourbon enthusiast — she's a cigar aficionado, too. Fans will remember her lighting up cigars to celebrate back-to-back WNBA championships with the Las Vegas Aces, and she smoked one during the championship parade after winning the second title — a move that sparked a partnership with Kingmakers to launch her own exclusive cigar, a Connecticut-wrapped, medium-bodied smoke. The woman has taste, and she has the track record to prove it isn't performative.
Plum's blockbuster trade to the Los Angeles Sparks in 2025 made national headlines, and the Yam Jam release was timed deliberately to coincide with her new chapter in Southern California. The expression became available beginning May 7 at select retailers in Los Angeles, launching just ahead of the 2026 WNBA season. The geography matters. This isn't a product dropped into national distribution and left to fend for itself on indifferent shelves — it was planted in the market where Plum has the deepest connection and the most immediate fan base.
The Process: Doing It the Right Way
A Trip to Star Hill Farm
What separates this release from the celebrity-spirits pack begins with the process. Celebrity spirit collaborations have a bad reputation, and for the most part, it's earned. Too often, a famous face slaps their name on a middling product and calls it a day. Plum took a different approach entirely.
Last year, Plum visited Star Hill Farm, home of the Maker's Mark Distillery, to participate in the brand's Private Selection program — an immersive experience that allows individuals, as well as retail and restaurant partners, to create a one-of-a-kind expression by customizing the finishing process of Maker's Mark bourbon. Rob Samuels, eighth-generation whisky maker and managing director of Maker's Mark, noted that it was a pleasure to host Kelsey and her mom at Maker's Mark's homeplace — to share what makes the brand so special and bring her taste vision to life through the Private Selection program.
The detail about Plum bringing her mother along is not a trivial aside. It signals genuine personal investment — a visit to Loretto, Kentucky, with family in tow is a different kind of engagement than signing a contract in a boardroom. Plum traveled to Star Hill Farm in Kentucky and worked through Maker's Mark's Private Selection program, choosing 11 finishing staves to shape the final expression.
How the Private Selection Program Actually Works
To understand why Yam Jam is a legitimate bourbon and not a gimmick, you need to understand the architecture of the Private Selection program itself. The Maker's Mark Private Selection experience is unlike any other — a first-of-its-kind barrel program that allows participants to create a one-of-a-kind Maker's Mark expression that is truly their own. This experience finishes fully matured cask strength Maker's in a single barrel that has been personalized with a custom selection of oak staves, mirroring the innovative process originally used by Bill Samuels, Jr. when he created Maker's Mark 46.
Maker's Mark brought true innovation to the bourbon industry with the introduction of the Private Selection process, which begins with cask strength Maker's Mark and is aged for nine additional weeks in barrels specially fitted with 10 wood-finishing staves in the distillery's limestone cellar. The barrel customization process uses five different stave types and results in over 1,001 different possible combinations. All expressions of Maker's Mark Private Selection are bottled at cask strength, which ranges from 107 to 114 proof.
The five stave types are distinct in their wood origin, cut geometry, and cooking method — and each produces a meaningfully different flavor outcome. Seasoned in the open air and dried naturally, finishing staves are cooked at varying times and temperatures to a precise set of specifications to achieve a unique flavor for each type. In contrast to the more intense charring of the barrels used in the initial aging process, the toasting process for staves is generally done at a lower temperature over a longer period of time.
The five profiles available — Baked American Pure 2, Seared French Cuvée, Maker's Mark 46, Roasted French Mendiant, and Toasted French Spice — each contribute a different register to the final whiskey. Baked American Pure is American oak that's slowly toasted; it adds notes of brown sugar, vanilla, caramel, and spice. Seared French Cuvée is made from French oak that's ridge-cut and seared with infrared heat, imparting toasty notes of oak and caramel. The Maker's Mark 46 stave — the one that started this whole experiment — is made from seared French oak and delivers dried fruit, vanilla, and spice.
That final nine-week rest in the limestone cellar is not a cosmetic step. The cool, stable environment allows the bourbon to draw the stave flavors slowly and evenly, without the aggressive extraction you'd get from higher temperatures. The taste from an American oak stave toasted low and slow in a convection oven is very different from that of a French oak stave toasted under infrared heat and cut with ridges or ruffles along the face. The result is a bourbon that carries the full architecture of the base Maker's while adding a customized top layer of flavor.
The base spirit itself has its own identity worth acknowledging. Maker's Mark is interesting among bourbons in that there's no rye included in the mix of grains. The requisite amount of corn (70%) is present along with the typical malted barley (14%), but what makes up the remainder of the mix is actually wheat (16%). That wheat-forward mashbill, which Bill Samuels, Sr. famously chose over the more common rye, gives the base spirit its characteristic softness and approachability — a canvas that the Private Selection stave program can customize without fighting the underlying grain character.
Plum's Stave Choices: Reading the Flavor Blueprint
The specific combination Plum landed on was neither accidental nor generic. The stave selection she chose — a combination of Baked American Pure 2, Seared French Cuvée, Maker's Mark 46, Roasted French Mendiant, and Toasted French Spice — resulted in a truly delicious bourbon. That is a stave recipe designed for depth and balance, not for any single dominant note. By pulling from all five available stave types, Plum constructed a layered profile that plays across the full palate rather than leaning into one flavor dimension.
What's in the Glass: A Full Tasting Profile
Official tasting notes from the brand describe aromas of bright chili spice and citrus, balanced by toasted oak, white pepper, and cherry. On the palate, the bourbon evolves with notes of sweet potato pie, toasted pecan, and soft baking spices, finishing with baking chocolate, pie cherries, and orange rind. That's a profile with genuine complexity — a combination of heat, sweetness, fruit, and baking spice that doesn't feel assembled but integrated.
The nose opens with an inviting wave of cocoa powder, cinnamon, and vanilla bean — warm, rich, and memorable. On the palate, the bourbon has a thick, luxurious viscosity, with big vanilla and caramel at the center surrounded by lighter notes of oak, orange peel, raisins, and tiramisu. On the finish, buttercream frosting and oak give way to banana bread, cherries, espresso, and cinnamon in a long, satisfying conclusion.
Bottled at 111.3 proof, Yam Jam is where precision meets personality. Layers of bright chili, citrus, soft baking spice, and toasted pecan come together in a pour that's both smooth and striking. At that proof level, the expectation is that heat will be the dominant sensation, but the wheat-forward base spirit works in favor of integration — the alcohol is present but not punishing, and it carries the flavors rather than overwhelming them.
The name itself — Yam Jam — is a deliberate nod to the sweet potato pie character that runs through the mid-palate, and it tracks with Plum's stated intentions for the bourbon. She wanted something bold and distinctive, with warmth and balance, meant to be enjoyed with family and friends, just as the founders intended with Maker's Mark. That language — warmth, balance, family — aligns directly with the flavor profile that reviewers have found in the bottle.
The LAFD Foundation Connection: More Than a Marketing Gesture
Celebrity releases that pair the product with a charitable cause can often feel performative. The cause feels real here. Maker's Mark donated the first barrel — yielding about 275 bottles — to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation for charitable auctions and events. In light of the LA fires earlier this year, it's a worthwhile cause that especially makes sense given Plum's location and position.
The foundation's funding priorities include tools, equipment, and training for Los Angeles firefighters to help bridge a funding gap. It's a most worthy cause, especially when considering what Los Angeles firefighters experienced during the devastating fires in Palisades and Altadena in 2025. Taking the first 275 bottles off the commercial market and routing them entirely through the LAFD Foundation is a meaningful commitment, not a token gesture — it represents the full yield of an entire barrel directed toward firefighter support at a moment when the city had just lived through one of its worst fire seasons on record.
Maker's Mark's Broader Play in Women's Sports
The Yam Jam release doesn't exist in isolation. It's part of a deliberate strategic move by Maker's Mark into the women's sports space, timed to coincide with a moment when WNBA visibility in America has arguably never been higher. Maker's Mark's collaboration with Kelsey Plum builds on the brand's broader commitment to women's basketball, brought to life through its multi-year partnership with Unrivaled — the 3-on-3 challenger league — its first sports league sponsorship, announced earlier this year. The partnership also serves as a platform for its "Perfectly Unreasonable" global campaign, celebrating the idea that going to extraordinary lengths in life and in bourbon is what separates good from remarkable.
Earlier this year, the brand announced a multi-year partnership with Unrivaled, a 3-on-3 league founded by Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, marking its first sports league sponsorship. That context matters for understanding the Plum partnership — this is not a one-off opportunistic play but a sustained investment in a demographic and a cultural conversation that bourbon has historically underserved.
Every bottle reflects Kelsey's "Perfectly Unreasonable" philosophy: trust your gut, push further, and never settle for what's already been done. That brand language, whether one embraces it fully or rolls their eyes at it, has the virtue of actually matching the subject. Plum's career — from leading Washington's program to back-to-back championships — has been defined by precisely that kind of refusal to accept a ceiling.
KP's Kicking Mule: A Cocktail Worth Knowing
Plum didn't stop at the bourbon itself. She also developed a signature cocktail called "KP's Kicking Mule," combining Maker's Mark bourbon with blood orange, blackberry, and ginger in a citrus-forward take on a classic mule. The cocktail framing is smart — a mule template is accessible and familiar to drinkers who might be encountering Plum's name on a bottle for the first time, while the specific combination of blood orange and blackberry against ginger gives the drink a personality that goes beyond generic. It's a reasonable entry point to the bourbon for someone who isn't yet ready to commit to a neat pour at 111.3 proof.
The Celebrity Bourbon Landscape: Where Yam Jam Stands
The market is not short on celebrity spirit plays, and the bourbon category has seen its share. Bourbon is a favorite liquor of mixologists and, apparently, celebrities. Bourbon is often in the spotlight due to some pretty high-powered celebrity endorsements. The quality varies enormously, and the bourbon community has developed a fairly reliable radar for detecting the difference between an athlete or entertainer who engaged meaningfully with the craft and one who simply licensed their name.
What separates legitimate collaborations from cynical ones comes down, ultimately, to the production side of the ledger. The Private Selection experience finishes fully matured cask strength Maker's in a single barrel that has been personalized with a custom selection of oak staves, mirroring the innovative process originally used by Bill Samuels, Jr. when he created Maker's Mark 46. That's the same program Maker's Mark uses for its most serious trade and collector partners — the same immersive process, the same Kentucky visit, the same nine weeks in the limestone cellar. Plum went through it the same way a restaurant sommelier or a serious retail buyer would.
The bourbon community's verdict, based on early reviews after the May 7 release, has been clear. When Maker's Mark announced its limited-edition Private Selection bourbon with Los Angeles Sparks guard Kelsey Plum, you'd be forgiven for tempering expectations. But tasters who reviewed the release have been happy to report that it's not bad, nor average — it's excellent. More broadly, this is a reminder of what Maker's Mark's finishing stave program can do in the right hands, and it sets a high bar for what a celebrity bourbon collaboration should look like.
Availability and What Buyers Need to Know
Released May 7 at select Los Angeles retailers, Yam Jam by Kelsey Plum is the real deal. The geographic restriction is a reality for anyone outside Southern California — this is a Los Angeles release, not a national rollout. For Angelenos and those visiting the area, the bottle should be actively sought. Yam Jam is available at select Los Angeles retailers, and if you're a fan of Plum or the Sparks, it's a no-brainer — but even if you just like bourbon, this is worth picking up.
Plum has been hosting meet-and-greet events with bottle signings in the Long Beach area, giving fans the opportunity to connect with Kelsey, take photos, and have bottles signed while celebrating the launch of her Private Selection. That kind of direct engagement — the athlete personally showing up to sign bottles — is another indicator that this collaboration meant something beyond a royalty check.
Bottled at 111.3 proof (55.65% ABV), it delivers a quality pour that rewards patience in the glass. At cask strength, this bourbon benefits from a few minutes of air before the first sip, and adding a small splash of water will open up the mid-palate sweetness without blunting the spice that makes the profile interesting. Neat is the purist's approach; on a large ice cube is a reasonable compromise that preserves the weight and viscosity reviewers have praised.
The Verdict: A Template for What Celebrity Bourbon Should Be
Yam Jam by Kelsey Plum doesn't need the celebrity angle to justify its existence — it stands up on taste. But the celebrity angle, properly understood, is part of the point. This release demonstrates that an athlete who takes her craft seriously, and who approaches a distillery partnership with the same precision she applies to game film and pre-season conditioning, can produce something that the bourbon community should respect on its own merits.
The stave selection is smart, the base spirit is exceptional, the proof is honest, the cause is legitimate, and the process was done right. "Working with Maker's Mark to create my own bourbon gave me a chance to take the same approach I bring to the court — thoughtful, precise, and intentional — and craft an expression that truly reflects who I am," said Kelsey Plum. That quote, stripped of any marketing context, is exactly what a good Private Selection is supposed to produce.
The bourbon industry has a long history of producers finding ways to put storytelling in service of mediocre liquid. Yam Jam reverses that equation — the liquid earns the story. For anyone who can find it in Los Angeles, that's a bottle worth tracking down before it disappears. And for the rest of the market, it's a release worth watching as a signal that celebrity bourbon, done with genuine craft and real engagement, can be something other than a collector's regret on a dusty shelf.
