Last Night's Tipple

Finally! A picture of a bottle of Russell's Reserve Rye! See? I wasn't kidding when I wrote a couple of weeks ago that it looks a lot like the bottle for Russell's Reserve Bourbon. One difference between the two (and one that I doubt most of the buyers of either will notice) is that Russell's Reserve Bourbon is 10 years old while Russell's Reserve Rye is only 6 years old. Why is this? I really have no idea, but I can speculate about possible explanations. First, the rye is obviously intended to compete with Sazerac Rye, which is 6 years old. Why shouldn't RR rye be the same age. Second is the pricepoint. Austin Nichols wanted this whiskey to retail around $25 or $30 a bottle, which might be a bit low for 10 year old rye. As a point of reference, Michter's 10 year old rye costs $81 a fifth. That's an outlier, of course, but it is generally true that rye of a certain age will be more expensive than comparable Bourbon of the same age. Wild Turkey rye is a couple of bucks more a bottle than WT Bourbon. The same is true of Van Winkle Family Reserve Bourbon and rye and of Sazerac rye and Buffalo Trace Bourbon. It could be that the Austin Nichols people decided that they couldn't offer 10 year old rye at the pricepoint that they wanted for this product. Third, it could be that there weren't stocks of Wild Turkey rye whiskey that were older than 6 years. WT rye is a young whiskey, and most of what goes into it will be just a shade over the legal minimum of 4 years old (legal minimum for straight rye without an age statement, that is). If Austin Nichols decided relatively recently to do a Russell's Reserve rye, there wouldn't have been much aged whiskey available. They may have decided to go with 6 year old whiskey instead of waiting for another four years to introduce the product. And fourth, it could be that Jimmy Russell and others at Wild Turkey just thought that WT rye at 6 years old was perfect for the flavor profile that they were going for. Sometimes, decisions like this aren't all about marketing.

Indeed, it would be hard for me to argue with the age of this rye. It still has a bit of the wildness of the regular WT bottling, but the additional age has toned it down and given it more caramel. As we have discussed before, more caramel is more better. I certainly don't have much experience with such things, but I can't really say that additional age would make this any better. About all I can complain about is the proof: I wish that this were 101 proof instead of 90. This is a very enjoyable rye.

Last Night's Tipple

In case you haven't noticed, I'm on something of a Wild Turkey kick recently. Given that this is the week of Thanksgiving, that seems appropriate. Last night, it was another pour of the original 101 proof version of Russell's Reserve. To be honest, it really didn't do a whole lot for me this time. Too much orange, too much wood, not enough cinnamon and caramel. I wonder if ten years is simply too much age for Wild Turkey -- the other expressions that I have tried and enjoyed have been (mostly) younger than that. (Rare Breed does contain some 12 year old juice, but it also contains 6 year old and 8 year old, meaning that the aggregate is likely younger than 10 years old.) It could also be, of course, that this bottle is simply not to my liking or that I was simply not in the mood to enjoy it last night.

Last Night's Tipple

Another pour of the old-style Wild Turkey Russell's Reserve Bourbon last night. You will recall that in its original configuration, Russell's Reserve, conceived as a tribute for Jimmy Russell, master distiller at Wild Turkey, was 101 proof in an ugly, painted bottle. It's currently bottled at 90 proof and in a much more attractive bottle, but lots of people don't like the reduced proof and are nostalgic for the original. Well, I lucked into the original a few weeks ago. I don't know if it's the increased proof or the Austin Nichols people selecting a different flavor profile, but the 101 proof version is certainly racier and, well, wilder than the 90 proof version. It's not my favorite Bourbon, but it is very good.

Last Night's Tipple

At this point, it's really not a good idea for me to go to the liquor store with the intent of just browsing and picking up something interesting. I'm running out of space to store bottles of whisk(e)y. I suppose that I could drink more and so go through bottles faster, but this doesn't seem like a particularly healthy alternative. So I've started to try to impose more buying discipline; to wit, I try to go to the liquor store looking for something in particular. If it's there, I buy it. If it isn't, then I buy nothing. Of course, it doesn't always work out that way, but the flesh is weak. Anyway, I went to Spec's on Saturday looking for the long-awaited Russell's Reserve Rye or one of the members of the recently-released 2007 Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. Alas, there was no BTAC; but there was some Russell's Reserve Rye.

You will recall that Russell's Reserve Bourbon started out as something of tribute to Jimmy Russell, Wild Turkey's long-time master distiller. The marketing folks got a hold of it, gussied up the packaging, and morphed it into a sort of secondary label for Wild Turkey, one whose primary audience is composed of yuppies who might otherwise consume Maker's Mark. Whatever -- the Bourbon is good, so who cares about the brand image? I would prefer it if it were still at 101 proof, but I'll still buy it. Noticing the rye revival and the success of such premium rye bottlings as Baby Sazerac and Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye, Austin Nichols apparently decided to expand the Russell's Reserve brand by introducing Russell's Reserve Rye. Like Russell's Reserve Bourbon, it's bottled at 90 proof, although it is only 6 years old (just like Baby Sazerac) where the Bourbon is 10 years old. It's priced at a bit under $25 a fifth, also just like Baby Sazerac. Guess which rye Austin Nichols envisioned this one primarily competing with?

The regular Wild Turkey rye bottling is racy and spicy. It screams out, "I am a rye whiskey," and only after sitting in the glass for a while do I notice the vanilla and caramel notes that aging in (heavily-toasted) charred oak barrels produce. Those notes are much more evident in Russell's Reserve Rye, probably because it's aged two years more than the standard bottling. At the same time, there is no doubt that it's a rye, and, furthermore, that it's a Wild Turkey rye. I can't really describe it, but Wild Turkey Rye is distinctive in a way that no other whiskey I've had is distinctive. Russell's Reserve Rye shares that distinction. Very good whiskey, and a very good value.

(Yes, I know that the picture above is of the Russell's Reserve Bourbon, not the rye. I couldn't find a picture of the rye, but the packaging looks almost identical to the Bourbon.)

Last Night's Tipple

I was in Spec's on Friday, and I noticed a single bottle of Wild Turkey Russell's Reserve 101 proof. You may recall that I have previously written about Russell's Reserve, but in its new packaging and its lower proof. About two or three years ago, Austin Nichols decided to reposition Russell's Reserve as a more upscale brand, appealing to boutique Bourbon-swilling yuppies. Accordingly, they hired a graphics designer to improve the label, put the whiskey in a more attractive bottle, and began using a wood-topped cord instead of a plastic-topped one. Oh, yeah: they also consulted their marketing research and discovered that boutique Bourbon-swilling yuppies liked their Bourbon with the proof in the nineties instead of over 100. Accordingly, the proof was dropped to 90. I don't know why Spec's had a singleton bottle of the old configuration laying around, but they did; and I snapped it up. It's not exactly a dusty, but it's as close as I've ever come to finding one.

I know that it will shock you, but it tastes a lot like the 90 proof version. Amazingly enough, two Bourbons of the same age from the same distillery sometimes taste alike. It other words, there's a lot of that vanilla creme brulee dessert Bourbon goodness that I like about the WT products that I've tried. The difference is that the 101 proof version has a decent amount of orange in both the aroma and the palate, as if someone included some orange zest in that vanilla creme brulee. I like it. But you probably already could have guessed that.