While savvy Wild Turkey fans know how influential the brand’s first foray into the world of liqueurs has been, the rest of the flock only receive sparse coverage in most places – this blog included.
With American Honey, then known as Wild Turkey Liqueur, Jimmy Russell proved the viability of liqueurs with a bourbon base, as opposed to the still prevalent use of vodka or grain-neutral spirit. It was the first Wild Turkey product to feature any type of infused bourbon blend, and it inspired a number of other brands to give similar products a whirl.
Wild Turkey also created an expression called Wild Turkey Spiced, a blend of Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey with “spice and other natural flavors” added. The label was discontinued after roughly two years, per David Jennings’ research, and seemingly few people have been missing it since the mid-2000s.
That brings us to the subject of today’s review, Wild Turkey Sherry Signature, a 10-year, 86-proof bourbon finished in Oloroso Sherry casks and “enhanced” with Oloroso Sherry. While it isn’t labeled a liqueur, and the back label doesn’t specify how much sherry was added during the production process, it seems likely that had this been a domestic product it would’ve been filed as a distilled spirit specialty with the TTB. That would make Sherry Signature Wild Turkey’s third liqueur.
Sherry Signature, of course, also stands as a forebear of the critically acclaimed Master’s Keep Revival. One might go so far as to say this expression helped establish the mold that Master’s Keep would eventually follow, considering that every cask-finished Wild Turkey whiskey released since has been a part of that series.
Introduced in 2004, Sherry Signature was released at a time when Wild Turkey was sending some wildly popular 12-year-old bourbon to export markets while bottling the then-hidden gem, Russell’s Reserve 101 Bourbon at the 10-year mark. It shows how flush the brand was with bourbon in the double-digit age range when Sherry Signature debuted. Today, Master’s Keep Revival’s success has primed the market, and still, if fans didn’t lose their minds at some of Lawrenceburg’s most precious, age-stated stock finding its way into sherry casks, they would certainly be shocked to see it “enhanced.”
To that point, we don’t really know why this one-time release was created, but in hindsight, it’s a ton of fun to see how much of an outlier and an influence it’s been. Despite its staid reputation for repetition, the scant occasions when Wild Turkey has sought to do something out-of-the-ordinary have all been worth paying attention to.
So how does it taste? That’s what we’ll settle in to explore today.
Wild Turkey Sherry Signature (2004) – 86-proof liqueur crafted with 10-Year Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey – distilled by the Austin, Nichols Distilling Co., Lawrenceburg, KY
Tasted neat in a Glencairn after a few minutes rest …
Color: Ruddy, rosy amber with a slightly cloudy appearance.
Nose: Peppery first, then sherry notes take the reigns with cinnamon, Brazil nuts, musk, nutmeg, vanilla pods, quince, and bubblegum.
Taste: The nuttiness and sherry sweetness lead with honey, black pepper, and clove. Then there’s Umami and white sugar at midpalate plus vanilla.
Finish: Brandied cherries, chalky milk chocolate, black pepper, and roasted Brazil nuts.
Impression: This is one interesting sherry gobbler! The appearance is admittedly a bit off-putting, as its cloudiness portends the syrupy first sip. But that cloying sweetness quickly recedes as nutty notes and baking spices keep the fruit-forward sherry impact in check.
Overall, the base whiskey is definitely obfuscated by all of the sherry’s moving parts, which is a bummer because you’d love to taste 10-year-old Wild Turkey from the early 2000s (even if it’s buried beneath a finishing cask and enhancements). Leaning so heavily into that profile indicates that this one was intended for an audience that wasn’t so keen on bourbon at the time: Scotch drinkers.
Sherry enhancement, and certainly sherry cask-finished whiskey, isn’t foreign to our friends across the pond. Viewed through that lens, one can see shades of what made this an appealing idea; however, it comes across as surprisingly heavy-handed, which is unusual given Wild Turkey’s general commitment to tradition and restraint. In hindsight, while this is a reasonably enjoyable expression, I can see why Eddie Russell sought to revisit the idea with 2018’s Master’s Keep Revival.
While Wild Turkey Sherry Signature is one of the brand’s few misses over the decades, it, like Wild Turkey Liqueur before it, helped to set a standard that would be picked up years later. This expression never started a revolution, but it was a revelation that led to one of Master’s Keep’s finest expressions and reflected the brand’s increasing openness to experimentation.
Credit where it’s due, but this is a curiosity deserving of its one-and-done format.
Rating: 2.75/5 🦃
fd
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