The Gold was 101 proof and bottled in '78. The Red one was 90 proof and bottled in '77....
I'm new to this forum, but having seen this thread while searching for a replacement of my gold label bottle (I'm down to about two sippin' glasses full), I can't help to recall my first encounter of Makers. It was from a bottle we snatched from my Dad stash back in the 80's. Seems sometime back in the 70's he drove across the country and stopped by the distillery. For years he had a dusty case stashed in the garage of green dipped bottles with gold ebossed stamped labels. They were aged longer, and came in at 101 proof. These were IMO smooth and clean and easy sippin. Later, this magical elixer came to be my special ocasion sipper -- if I only knew how rare these were I might not a drank em so quick - lol - NOT! These were IMO far superior than the standard red label (dipped wax) bottles sold around town. When I went through all the green labels (complete with tax stamps), I hunted for more (my brother still has 3/4 of a bottle of green which he wont share --- darn b*tthead!). In the 90's there were on shelves of select stores both gold and red. The golds seem to disapear and any time I spotted one, I snached it up... well I'm down to my last few sippin's and wish there was more to be found... It's my hope that someone at the distillery gets the hint from my Ambassador stamping on barrel #479930 "GOLD LABEL OR BUST !!" (pic below). I'm not a marketing genius, but I do know that there was never a loss when they made available the limited production runs, only those in the know, really knew. And yes we Americans would buy them and drink them without any loss of profits from the corperate folks who now run Makers.
Oh, by the way, how was, did you ever get the 1 of 20 bottles that this thread started with, and how was it??