The Wild Turkey distillery in Lawrenceburg sits overlooking the Kentucky River on a large site made up of the distillery, multiple seven storey rickhouses, more modern warehousing and their visitor centre. Its beginnings date back to when the Ripy brothers started their Ripy Brothers distillery on Lawrenceburg’s Wild Turkey Hill in 1869. It was only in 1940 when a distillery sales executive on an annual wild turkey hunt shared his bourbon with his friends that Wild Turkey found its new name.
Naturally limestone-filtered water from the Kentucky river together with corn, rye and malted barley make the mash to which Wild Turkey’s unique and original yeast strain is added to form the base for all their spirits. The fermented mash is distilled in their continuous still and the resulting distilled raw spirit goes into barrels of American White Oak that have been heavily charred to the most intense No.4 ‘Alligator’ char – that’s 55 seconds of burn that toasts a barrel’s interior to a rough, shiny, deeply-fissured and scalelike texture. Wild Turkey barrel age their bourbons well beyond the minimum two-year requirement, often 5 years or longer, more than most distilleries, to give it their distinctively rich style, and much longer for some of their special releases.
ALC 50.5%
United States
£38.00 / per bottleMellow dram
United States
