How good is Wild Turkey and which one is the best?

[Music] hey welcome back to another episode of whiskey row so on tonight's video we're going to be finding out what is the best wild turkey product out there or at least that i have according to my taste now i haven't had any of these wild turkeys for quite a while other than the wild turkey rare breed but even that i didn't have by itself i actually had it blended with a woodford reserve double up doing a little experiment there a while a couple videos ago so tonight we're going to take these five we're going to do a blind tasting and figure out what's the best but before we get into it if you end up enjoying this video please give it a thumbs up if you haven't subscribed to the channel please do please follow us on instagram and check us out on patreon at slash whiskey row now first off tonight we're gonna start in the middle with wild turkey 101 this is such an amazing product comes in at such a good price it's such a delicious blend of flavors it's such a quality product for the price to be honest it almost can't be beat i can't think of anything else that's this readily available that's this consistent and this good there's others that are priced comparatively that i would say might be a little bit better but since some places are hard to find the early times bottled and bond is fantastic but it's not available everywhere now everything else falls into two categories you either have the like standard flavor profile standard recipe standard package whatever you want to call it but it's what you can get anywhere and then we have two single barrel products so with single barrels most of you guys know with single barrels you're getting the flavor profile of that barrel but that may vary from barrel to barrel so there could be some differences if i go and get a kentucky spirit single barrel today and then i go buy another one from a different state or a different store where they're coming from likely coming from different barrels the flavors may be drastically different same with this russell's single barrel could be drastically different now i will say this wrestle single barrel i haven't had it for quite a while but my memories of it are positive i don't remember what it tastes like but i just remember thinking wow this is a really good product same with the kentucky spirit so first off tonight is wild turkey rare breed this guy's coming in at 116 proof definitely not the first bottle of wild turkey rare breed that i've bought for 45 40 45 50 this is a fantastic bourbon if you haven't tried it obviously do i highly recommend it now next up is the russell's reserve 10 year coming in at 90 proof so this is actually going to be the lowest proof item on the table tonight but it is 10 years old so hopefully the flavor profile of a little bit of age a little bit of more maturity it's going to kind of carry it through i was having a conversation with some of the patreons the other day on disc on our discord server and this particular russell's it's not very good i this you know mentally when going into this battle this is the one that i'm gonna like the least i haven't had it for probably eight or nine months and even before that i didn't really do much damage to it so uh you know i could be wrong it could uh surprise me tonight but going into this if i were to predict the loser of this it would be the what russell's 10 just because this particular one isn't very good now this is the first and only one i've ever had but it was bad enough that it kind of turned me off to the russell's tens and i kind of don't recommend them to anybody so of all these products i recommend all of them except for the brussels 10. could be wrong and again this could have just been a bad bottle bad batch whatever next up is the wild turkey one one we already talked about it a little bit but i can't say enough good things about this guy coming at 101 proof now this obviously is the russell's single barrel now this one is coming in at 110 proof it's really good this particular single barrel is a great expression it is on the higher proof side and actually competes pretty well uh for the price and i i do definitely recommend it and then last up tonight is the kentucky wild turkey kentucky spirit single barrel this particular one is coming and at a hundred and one proof as well now i'm about to pull the glasses down and we're gonna get started in the battle here in just a second now we are about to cross over 5000 subscribers and i will tell you that when we cross over 5000 subscribers which honestly i never thought we'd get there at all it's been an amazing journey to see the growth of the channel over the last six and a half seven months and so to go from from essentially zero uh from when i created the channel and i asked my wife to make a youtube account and subscribe so i had one subscriber and then i had two buddies that did it too then i had three subscribers and to grow from that point starting in november to now has been an amazing journey and the only reason i'm really mentioning it as we get towards 5000 is because there will be some videos coming up where we're going to be doing some 5000 subscriber celebrations i'm going to be doing some giveaways both on youtube and on instagram there will be different giveaways on each one uh both are going to be pretty awesome so if you haven't taken the time to actually follow me on instagram it's a good time to do it now so that you'll be ready that when we do the giveaways on instagram because you will have to be you have an instagram account anyway my point is is get ready because uh i'm excited we're about to cross over 5000 i'm surprised we got here we've slowly been limping along lately had some health issues had some travel and it's kind of slowed down the production of videos but i'm doing better and the channel's doing better and i'm home and i'm back on schedule and i'm trying to get back up to three times a week so we've got the glasses down now for those of you that are new to the channel or just as a reminder we have an ounce and a half of each of the wild turkey product in a glencairn the glencairns are labeled on the bottom so that i can identify them in a second we're going to move the bottles out of the way now before we do let me tell you what i think the outcome is going to be i think that first place is going to be this russell single barrel i think second place is going to be rare breed i think third place will be kentucky spirit fourth will be 101 and fifth will be this russell's 10. [Music] they're sufficiently mixed up i don't know which is which let's go ahead and dive into it on the nose i'm kind of getting a maple syrup hints of cinnamon little could a little bit of an herbalness to it some rye spice maybe very faint very mellow not what i would expect from wild turkey a little bit of a cereal grain on the nose as well that's wild turkey for you i'm getting like a serial gang grain sweetness hints of honey some good cinnamon kind of an herbalness to it some rye spice it's what i think of like classic wild turkey doesn't taste particularly old definitely doesn't taste high proof very well balanced but definitely has kind of that wild turkey spicy characteristic well i'm already in trouble because this one smells just like the other one when you have five products from the same distillery you're gonna tend to get similar characteristics there will be some subtle differences i know so this one smells a little bit higher proof it's got a good cinnamon but had a hint of coffee very odd a little bit of an herbal-ness to it i don't really get much sweet on the nose some faint caramel but definitely more spicy and kind of a bold smell it's very sweet it's very good little bit of a green whiskey green wood kind of thing very faint though definitely not the primary taste goes with a good strong sweetness some herbalness higher proof good mouth feel good finish this is a good solid bourbon on the nose i'm getting some cereal kind of sweet hints of banana little bit of char maybe it's got a little more age on it definitely herbal you know kind of the and rye some you know kind of classic uh wild turkey it's got a little bit of a peanut taste to it not picking much proof out of it there's a hint of some some herbalness a touch of some spice just very very mild though i'm getting hints of tobacco doesn't taste that proofy it could be the russells because i'm getting a little bit more of like age and a little bit more peanut which is kind of odd for a wild turkey so i'm wondering if as it's sat in the wood for that 10 years if it's kind of mellowed a little bit on the nose i'm getting some good vanilla hints of honey a little bit of grain maybe a touch of a maltiness kind of odd for wild turkey which means my nose is broken so a little bit of spice a little bit of herbal on the nose is pretty well balanced so this is a taste like it's got a little bit more proof on it oh it's got a really good mouth coat wow that's good a good cinnamon some black pepper it's a good sweetness it's nice and sweet but the sweet flavors aren't that strong it's hard to describe so think of just like a simple syrup where it's sweet but it doesn't go to vanilla or caramel or honey or something else it's just kind of like a generic sweetness that's really good it doesn't burn though but it's definitely higher proof i think we'll see could be wrong but this is good i like this um i don't like this one oh i don't like this one at all did i even talk about the nose oh so this one has proof on the nose i'm all out of sorts i can't even remember if i described the nose on this or i just started drinking it but either way so on the nose it's very proofy very strong it's got hints of like a herbalness and cinnamon and black pepper so it's got banana vanilla cinnamon black pepper but man it threw me for a loop so it's kind of got a graininess very faint i'm getting black pepper on the on the palate with some clove cinnamon it's sweet it's got a sweetness to it the sweetness is kind of like a like a watered down honey and it's got this kind of woodiness to it that i don't love compared to the other four it kind of really kind of stood out it just seemed out of balance all the wild turkey products generally are well balanced they tend to be spicier but there's like a good balance and a play that you would expect from wild turkey and this last one was just not really there all right i've had a chance to dive into these a little bit to get a little more familiar with them take some time with them and more importantly rank them to figure out which is which is number one which is number five etc so let's jump right into that number five this one clearly it was this one no question i didn't have a doubt as to this being the fifth one fourth one third this one and first was this one so as i'm going through these blinds most of the time i'm not really focused on which is which it just happens to come to my mind like oh that kind of tastes like that or oh i think that might be that because of this it doesn't really influence the results because what tastes better tastes better to me tonight anyway i'm not going to try to go through and predict which is which because with them all being wild turkey products they're so similar most of them except for this one these four were all very very similar all right let's get the bottles on the table and then we'll go through and tell you what's fifth place for first place second place whatever you know what i'm saying alright fifth place russell's ten year can't say i'm shocked on this i think i called that one pretty much out of the gate number four 101. okay number three okay and first place okay so i called this one and i called this one a second place and ended up in third and i called this one third place ended up in second and then fourth and fifth so that's actually pretty close i'll take it um for the most part i was relatively close i will have to say that this is a particularly good single barrel of russell's it really is kind of stands out it's very well balanced it's got some great flavor this kentucky spirit again a single barrel that was was a good one i don't regret it at all single barrels are hit or miss sometimes the single barrels are actually really really good and other times they're not good at all my eh taylor single barrel for example is worse than the small batch but some people get single barrels from each tailor and they're amazing so i got lucky in these two single barrels that said the rare breed is the best standard flavor profile the wild turkey rubbery a second and then the russell's is third the russell's ten that i have isn't very good whereas other people have got russell's tens that are actually pretty good you know i know that for example my mixture is ten when i have my own bottle of mixture's tin and it's absolutely amazing but then i had makers 10 in oregon twice at two different restaurants both of them were not near as good as mine maker's 10. there are variants between distillers there are bad batches and bad bottles and it just happens so i don't want to beat russell's tent up too much because i have a bad bottle that said it's hard for me to recommend russell's 10 for the price when wild turkey 101 is better to me then russell's 10 and it's like half the price wild turkey rare breed is is one of my favorites it's a classic it's so good but then these two single barrels they just they're really good to me they stand out really well now that said this is the outcome for tonight i'm pretty happy with it this was fun to dive into wild turkey if you enjoyed the video give me a thumbs up if you like the channel please subscribe follow me on instagram we're doing some fun stuff out there if you want to support the channel check us out on patreon.com whiskeyrow until next time find a wild turkey you love [Music]

Channel: Whiskey Row

Views: 35,812

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Id: BOWUQAw4TLo

Length: 13min 32sec (812 seconds)

Published: Sat May 22 2021