Wild Turkey Master's Keep 17 Year

Brooklyn

Smooth!

Orange rind and almost like a bitters sensation? Not spicy and not tannins, but like a dry, floral note. For all the hype, this is meh. Might be a tad over-oaked

It's got orange peel and only a slight bite. With the price and my peasant pallet I like the 101 better. Good deal for my wallet

Standard dark orange color. Smells great, tons of oak, plenty of vanilla, oak, with a a healthy dose of the spice box, vanilla, oak, caramel, maybe a hint of cherries. I know I emphasized the oak in the nose, but it’s not over-oaked, it’s actually almost perfect balance, and the vanilla character is beautiful. The taste features the spicy character much more than the nose would imply, but that oak and vanilla come though loud and clear as well, as well as more typical caramel corn notes. Mouthfeel is surprisingly nimble, the lowish proof keeps things approachable (maybe too low? But the complexity makes up for it I think). Overall this is fantastic, if a bit pricey. Definitely worth a pour at this bar, not sure the bottle price would be worth it, but the secondary price is ridiculous. Still, it’s pretty great… Beer Nerd Musings: My initial thought is that Wild Turkey’s unique attributes, like their lower entry proof, would make for interesting bourbon barrel aged beer. However, in my experience, beers aged in Wild Turkey barrels have been somewhat disappointing. Anderson Valley supposedly only uses Wild Turkey barrels for their program, but while Huge Arker was nice, it’s not really top tier stuff either (and their other entries are not quite at that level either – generally having a surprisingly low bourbon barrel character). Local favorite Neshaminy Creek has used Wild Turkey barrels a few times. I haven’t had the barleywine, but the first BBA Leon they made was a middling effort as well (then again, so was the second vintage, which used Buffalo Trace barrels – I think the base beer is the determinant factor there, or perhaps the process). Wild Turkey is definitely a component of many BBA blends, including BCBS, which are certainly great. BCBS did a sorta stealth single barrel thing a few years ago and Wild Turkey variants were well received, but I missed out on that mania. The 17 year Masters Keep barrels would be fantastic for barrel-aging beer, but to my knowledge, they have not been explicitly used for that purpose (and honestly, even if I had a bottle of the stuff, it’s to expensive to use for home brewing)…