Initial Thoughts
Walking through my local liquor store the other day I noticed a new bottle sitting on the shelf. It was next to some other Wild Turkey bottles, and I thought hmm, this is kind of odd and out of place. After looking at it a little longer, I realized it was a new bottle of Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit Single Barrel Bourbon!
This new bottle is a far cry from the old bottle in terms of presentation. Honestly I think this bottle better represents the brand. The old bottle looked similar to a bottle of Remy Martin cognac to me. I can see that the old bottle maybe represented the fan of a wild turkey in full strut, but it was just a little far out there for me. I’m not saying the old bottle turned me off from buying it, but I did pick this one up the first time that I saw it. So there ya go.
I’m really excited to crack open this bottle. I’ve started a new process for reviews. On Wednesdays nights I’m getting a group of friends together and we have Whiskey Wednesdays! This was the first one. The plan is to meet at each others house on a rotating schedule and sample new bottles of whiskey, that the host house purchases. Of course we’ll have cigars along the way as well! This is a collective review from that group transcribed by me. I think it gives it a more robust view of what this bourbon has to offer and I hope you enjoy it!
Nose
Right off the bat when you open up this Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit Single Barrel Bourbon you’re hit with some heat… What I forgot to mention above is that this is a blind review, no one but the host knows what the bottle is, so I feel that it provides a bit more honest review and experience. As I was saying, first off you get the heat in the glass. You can tell it’s pretty stout. We didn’t cut it initially because we wanted the full experience.
You get a lot of spice on the nose, and hints of clove. In fact one reviewer even said he thought it was rye because of the amount of spice coming out of the glass. We swirled it around the glass to look at the legs rolling down the inside of the glass to show the viscosity of the spirit and to help soak in some more notes.
Palate
After we nailed down the aroma of this Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit Single Barrel Bourbon we moved on to the palate. We picked up on some of the same flavors listed on the company’s website. We took down our initial notes and then compared them to see if we could be master distillers, turns out we’re not.
What we did notice was the clove flavor carried over along with the spice. That was up front on your tongue, but as we we let the bourbon roll down the side of tongues it created a nice sweet flavor profile that eventually appeared as a honey like flavor. With the heat of this bourbon being at 101 it really kept that spice note all the way throughout. The sweetness of the corn didn’t fully appear until we cut it down with some ice. For a second tasting I used a big square ice cube which chilled the Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit Single Barrel Bourbon without diluting it much and that’s when it really began to open up!
Finish
We know, we’re getting a lot of spice out of this Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit Single Barrel Bourbon, but how did it finish? A common charaterstic that I have found across all of the Wild Turkey products that I have tried is that hearty finish. The richness of the flavor just sits on your tongue and I was getting a nice butterscotch type finish as if I was sucking on a Werther’s Original candy. It completely coated my mouth and made for a delicious drinking experience.
Conclusion
I really had 3 different experiences with this Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit Single Barrel Bourbon. The first tasting was neat, and it was a little too much for me out of the gate. I loved the intensity of the flavor but the heat and spice on a 90 degree summer day was a bit much. When I put 2 small ice cubes in there they melted too fast and watered it down to a bottom shelf bourbon. The best experience I had was using the large square ice cube to chill the bourbon and then throwing it out before diluting began. I also made the ice cubes with distilled water to keep it as clean as I could. That to me really gave me the best experience with this Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit Single Barrel Bourbon.
Overall – This is a great guy, at around $60 for a single barrel I would go back to the well for this. You have to remember though it comes out at 101 and is a bit stronger than some other single barrels on the market. If you haven’t tried it, go pick up a bottle. I bet you won’t be disappointed, I know I wasn’t!
