Not Your Father's Wild Turkey

Another blogger wrote a recent post suggesting that Wild Turkey is about to enter a new "Golden Age". I walked away from the post feeling annoyed -- mainly because Wild Turkey continues to be in a downward spiral. Even Wild Turkey 101 bottles from ten years ago are superior to the 101 bottles seen today. I'm tired of people being afraid to speak their mind about whiskey. We view whiskey opinions as only being good if you have something nice to say about the whiskey or the distillery.

The old Wild Turkey is dead and the new Wild Turkey is a cheap imitation. 

I want to make a couple of things clear: (1) I blame all of Wild Turkey's current issues on Campari. (2) Jimmy and Eddie Russell are both fantastic master distillers. I believe Jimmy and Eddie want to make the highest quality whiskey possible, but are unable to do so due to financial constraints and a corporate overlord (3) To some extent, the issues stated in the post exist in many of the distilleries throughout Kentucky.

The whiskey made by Wild Turkey today isn't bad per se, but it's not great either. Wild Turkey produced some of the best bourbon in America from 1972 (when Austin Nichols started sourcing all of its bourbon from the Wild Turkey distillery) to around the early 1990s. It's not clear exactly when the quality subsided, but a good reference point is the removal of the eight year age statement on the 101 brand in 1992.

Wild Turkey is an interesting case study, because unlike many other distilleries there were no dramatic changes that immediately affected the quality of the whiskey. E.g. National distillers was purchased in 1987, Stitzel Weller was closed in 1992, Heaven Hill had the fire in 1996. If you have had any of the brands produced by those distilleries, you would notice an immediate change in quality after those dates. Rather the quality of Wild Turkey seemed to gradually fade over time. One thing that really pisses me off is that Jimmy Russell always says that nothing has changed about Wild Turkey since he started at the distillery. Well, Jimmy is a liar -- many things have changed at the distillery and he isn't blind. Well what the hell went wrong then?

1. Glut Whiskey. If you talk to anyone who likes older bottles of Wild Turkey, they'll tell you that the bourbon is better because it had "glut whiskey". The 1970s and 1980s brought with them a glut of aged bourbon. While bourbon was popular in the 1960s, consumers shifted more towards clear spirits in the 70s and 80s. Producers ramped up production, but there was no demand for their bourbon. As a result, distillers sat on bourbon for longer periods of time and the bourbon was enhanced from this additional aging.

This sounds like a great theory and gives Wild Turkey a great out. "We can't make today's whiskey like we did back then because it was caused by a severe inventory glut". I think this glut whiskey thing is a bit overstated. It is certainly true that bourbons were generally aged longer during the 70s and 80s. However, I think it's untrue to say that Wild Turkey was routinely dumping 15-20 year old whiskey into their 8 year old 101 brand. If you look at bottled-in-bond expressions from other distilleries (bottled-in-bond had to state the distillation year and bottling year) from this time period the age is no higher than ten years. If you don't buy that argument, wouldn't higher aged stocks have been sold under the Wild Turkey 12 year label for a higher price? Regardless, the Wild Turkey we know today is aged for less time in a barrel than its 1980's counterpart.

2. Chill Filtration. Chill filtration is one of the dumbest things in all of whiskey, period. Chill filtration removes esters and fatty acids from the bourbon. Chill filtration is done solely for cosmetic purposes. Without chill filtration, whiskey tends to get hazy if proofed down low enough -- I've only ever seen this at 80 proof or below (if you add an excessive amount of ice to your whiskey). Regardless, the "haze" has no effect on the whiskey's taste and is completely natural. Chill filtration strips out flavor from the final product and certainly takes away from the final viscosity of the bourbon. Chill filtration has a serious impact on the whiskey, if you taste 70s-80s Wild Turkey you will notice the bourbon has an oily texture to it. Modern bottles do not have this oily mouthfeel quality to them, with the exception of Russell's Reserve which is non-chill filtered.

3. Higher Entry Proof. This in my opinion is Wild Turkey's biggest problem currently. Until 2004, Wild Turkey had a notoriously low barrel entry proof of 107. The barrel entry proof was raised in 2004 to 110 and then again in 2006 to 115. Although still lower than the legal maximum of 125, this certainly effects the final product. The resulting 101 whiskey is watered down considerably more, i.e. proofing from 107 to 101 vs. 115 to 101. In addition to the watered down effect, the barrel entry proof effects the way the whiskey ages. Simple logic will tell you that at a lower entry proof the whiskey picks up more water-soluble compounds and less alcohol-soluble compounds.

4. Cherry Picking Barrels. The quality barrels do not go into the 101 brand. Today, at any distillery if a barrel is deemed to be of high quality then the barrel will be set aside for a special release. The high quality barrels go into Rare Breed, Kentucky spirit, and Russell's Reserve. What's left is a 101 product that is made with whatever barrels are left over. I am scared to think of what goes into the 81 proof bottles. This type of cherry picking did not exist in the 70 and 80s when Wild Turkey had two brands the 8 year old 101 and 12 year 101 (don't mention that honey liqueur garbage -- that stuff is vile and a disgrace).

5. Cypress Fermentation Tanks. I'll admit a lot of ignorance on this subject. I'll counter by saying good luck trying to find someone who is not a master distiller to tell you the impact of steel vs. cypress fermentation tanks. I believe I have heard cypress does effect the way that the yeast grow and work to break down the mash during fermentation. I can say it makes an impact, but I'm unsure of magnitude of the impact. Regardless, why did Wild Turkey feel the need to switch from cypress to steel fermentation tanks. Yeah, steel is easier to clean but if you're saying you want to leave your process unchanged then why change it? Don't worry Jimmy wouldn't switch tanks until he was certain the whiskey would remain unchanged -- get real Jimmy you've changed everything else who are you kidding?

I am sure there are other changes that I missed. In my opinion those are the biggest changes and have had the most detrimental effect on the quality of the whiskey.

Post 1992

There were some quality Wild Turkey products made post-1992 but they were the exception and certainly not the standard. The early Rare Breed batches, Kentucky Spirit, The famed "donut" bottles were all great. The last quality and wildly available bottle of Wild Turkey was Russell's Reserve 101 10 year single barrel. The production of that particular product stopped in 2005. You have Decades, Masters Keep, and Russell's Reserve 1998 but those products are ephemeral. All were distilled prior to the barrel entry proof being raised.

If I had a glimmer of hope it's Russell's Reserve, but glimmer is as strong as it gets. There are store picks that are pretty good, but nothing that takes your breath away and certainly nothing to get overly excited about. If we were rating Wild Turkey on a ten point scale the 70s and 80s bottling would score an eight or a nine and a good Russell's store pick scores a four. It's like watching an all-star athlete continue to play way past his prime. When Michael Jordan came out of retirement and played for the Wizards were you excited because of how well he played or were you excited because it was Michael Jordan? No one said Jordan sucked when he returned to the NBA. He was a great player and still performed better than many players in the league. Was he as interesting to watch as when he played for the Bulls? The answer is unequivocally no. Every time I pick up a modern Wild Turkey bottling I'm disappointed because I know what they were once capable of producing.

Can We Fix It? Yes We Can, But We Won't!

The good news is that Wild Turkey can reverse problems 1-5 outlined above. The bad new is that Wild Turkey will never reverse problems 1-5 because they have no incentive to reverse these problems. Wild Turkey has put their penny pinching ahead of making the best quality whiskey.

Wild Turkey should cut the Matthew McConaughey bullshit. Fire the guy, he has no relevance to the brand. Sell your product based on the quality of the product and not some celebrity endorsement. Wild Turkey has a great brand and a great legacy without a phony endorsement. Some will say eh McConaughey is better than Mila Kunis -- this is not a winning argument. Why isn’t a three generation family run business enough of an advertising campaign?

As consumers we don't need certain labels: Wild Turkey 81 shouldn't be a product, I hope I don't have to explain. Do we need Kentucky Spirit? We have Russell's store picks that are at 110 proof, why would I ever buy a 101 proof single barrel? Do we need Russell's Reserve at 90 proof? No, add water to the 110. Even Rare Breed seems like a worthless product in this context, shouldn't we just release a single barrel cask strength version or Russell's Reserve. We can apparently do it several times for Single Cask Nation, but no one else???? 

I guess the important question is what could Wild Turkey realistically do? Wild Turkey could designate one warehouse where they produce an aged stated, 107 barrel entry proof, non-chill filtered product (I'd even forgo the cypress treatment). This would be easy for Wild Turkey to do and their final product would command a premium and a loyal fan base (that even I would join). Buffalo Trace has the experimental warehouse and I think a portion of their whiskey is so horrible it never gets bottled.

The sad part about the future is that we are getting the wrong type of experimentation. The new Longbranch release is laughable at best. How about trying to improve the quality of your whiskey rather than give us this "solid" mesquite flavor.

Enjoy your barbecue smoker whiskey. I'll reach for my bottle of 80's Wild Turkey.