Marker’s Mark is entering the metaverse… sort of.
The iconic bourbon brand has teamed with Party Horses to be its official bourbon partner for 2022. To celebrate, the two companies are releasing a supply of limited-edition Party Horses commemorative labels to 1,000 early adopters. NFTs (non-fungible tokens) in this project are produced as generative artwork that live on a blockchain. Using an Ethereum smart contract that is created through computer code, algorithms uniquely assign traits to each piece of art during a process called “minting.”
Party Horses began as a Louisville-based project by co-founders Justin Delaney, a serial entrepreneur and, and Brook Smith, a philanthropist and racehorse owner. “We want our mission to be simple to understand,” said Delaney. “Use Web3 for good, have fun, create beauty, destabilize the disappointing, and collaborate with others to build amazing things.”
Delaney and Smith teamed up with an experienced software engineer, Izaak Prats (formerly of Meta) and a team of award-winning designers, Louisville event planner Joey Wagner, and other Louisville-based Web3 enthusiasts. Before the project formally launched, Smith brought in Danish model Helena Christensen and designer Camilla Stærk, after spending some time in the space and realizing the gap in representation for women.
“I’ve known Helena and Camilla for a long time through other business ventures, and their creativity is rivaled only by their eye for equitability,” said Smith. “This is an opportunity to knock down some walls in Derby circles, and also fight for equal representation in the Web3 community.”
The premise for the NFT art? What if horses attended the Kentucky Derby to cheer on the human race? The first digital event occurred in March when a list of 2,000 early adopters were able to pre-mint, granting whitelist access. 10,000 Maker’s Mark x Party Horses NFTs were mint two weeks later, and on March 15 NFT holders were able to access exclusive events, like an exclusive pre-Derby concert and more.
“The coolest thing about the collaboration of bourbon and NFTs is the passion of the advocates behind both industries,” Delaney told us exclusively. “NFTs and bourbon both foster communities of loyal supporters and bringing both together on a project with real utility and scarcity creates a great merging of web3 and brand.”
