Last Night's Tipple

Last night, I finished my bottle of Russel's Reserve. There's not a whole lot new to report about the Bourbon: it was good, of course. I got more of the sweet, dessert-type notes than of the big, spicy-type notes last night, but there was nothing there that I haven't written about before.

Russel's Reserve started life as a 101 proof bottling, which made a lot of sense given that it is a Wild Turkey product and Wild Turkey is known for its 101 proof whiskeys. Three of four years ago, it was shifted to 90 proof. At the same time, the packaging was upgraded -- the original bottling was a tall bottle with the label painted on, and it looked a bit cheap; whereas this one has a thick glass bottom, which gives it some heft, and a nicely-designed, paper label, which makes it look more expensive. In any event, why would Wild Turkey have dropped the proof by 10%?

The period from the late '70s until the early '90s was very hard for producers of American whiskey. They overproduced at a time where the market was abandoning Bourbon. The result was a glut of whiskey: every distiller had huge numbers of aging barrels that they couldn't sell for a decent price. Ever wonder why we started to see lots of super-aged Bourbons hit the market in the mid to late '90s? It's because distillers had large stocks of old whiskey that they hadn't been able to sell previously. Well, the glut is over. There aren't huge stocks of extra-aged whiskeys anymore. Bourbon sales are picking up. Wild Turkey faced more demand for Russel's Reserve than they had stocks of good, 10 year old whiskey, so they were faced with a decision if they wanted to increase sales: they could cut the proof of the whiskey, or they could cut the age. They chose to cut the proof (and thereby also reduced the excise taxes paid per bottle sold). Other Bourbon distillers have made the other choice. Russel's Reserve is still very good whiskey.