Distillery: Wild Turkey
Proof: 110
Age: NAS (About 10 years)
Mashbill: 75% Corn, 13% Rye, 12% Malted Barley
BACKGROUND: The Russell's Reserve line is produced by Wild Turkey Distillery. It is named in honor of Jimmy and Eddie Russell who are father and son and have been the master distillers at Wild Turkey with a combined tenure of over 100 years. Russell’s Reserve Single Barrel is aged in #4 chad American white oak barrels for about 10 years and hand selected by master distiller Eddie Russell. It is bottled at a higher proof than Russell’s 10 Year.
NOSE: Rich caramel, butterscotch, and vanilla bean scents waft up from the glass. It is a very sweet nose with some scents of oak and warm baking spices. It’s very well balanced and has a nice richness to it. (22/25)
PALATE: Rich and creamy notes of all spice, caramel, oak, baking spice, leather, and maple blend together to have a delicious sweet, rich, and baking spice flavor profile. The flavors are all well balanced and complimentary to form an elegant, aged, smooth palate. (35/40)
FINISH: The Finnish is quite long and has many classic bourbon notes to include oak, rye spice, leather, tannins, and some deep caramel. (21/25)
VALUE: With a SRP of $55 this is a great buy (8/10)
Overall: 86/100
FINAL THOUGHTS: Russell‘s Reserve Single Barrel is an amazing bourbon whiskey. It has all of the classic bourbon whiskey flavors with a prominence and boldness attributable to the proof. It is better than Russels 10 year thanks to the proof. We strongly recommend this to everyone and anyone.
Similar & Slightly Better Whiskey: Stagg Jr Batch 14
Similar & Equal Whiskey: Blanton‘s
Similar & Slightly Worse Whiskey: Knob Creek 12
Tell us what you think and give us some feedback!
Scoring Legend:
96-100: The perfect dram, juice of the gods
90-95: Near perfect, truly incredible whiskey
85-89: Amazing whiskey, will always try to keep a backup bottle of this
80-84: Very good, some minor flaws here or there
75-79: Good, quite enjoyable to drink, Will try and keep a bottle on the shelf
70-74: Solid, wouldn’t go out of my way to get this
60-69: Decent, would offer this up to non whiskey drinkers
50-59: Not my cup of tea
Below 50: Give away