When the Wild Turkey Jimmy Russell 70th Anniversary came out, I was floored…a fantastic 8-year-old expression of Wild Turkey, bottled at 101 proof and costing only about $50-55. It was excellent juice and deserving of being continued on…which is what I thought might be happening with the announcement in mid-2025 that they would produce a “shelf stable” 101-proof product aged 8 years…call it Wild Turkey 101 8-Year. As with all their other bourbon products, this uses a 75% corn, 13% rye, and 12% malted barley mash bill. 8 years of aging has been Jimmy Russell’s proclaimed “sweet spot” for aging Turkey for years, but this is the first time in a while that an 8 year age-stated whiskey has been produced for the US market.
In the glass, the Wild Turkey 101 8 Year is medium amber. Giving is a good nosing, I picked up lots of vanilla, a little toasted butterscotch, and plenty of charry oak. The sip began with a tremendous sweetness…lots of caramel and apple notes, followed by a little rye and proof spice and burn, then a finish that kept the notes of vanilla and butterscotch going for a long, long time.
I had to look for a long time before I found this available in my region. Even now, it’s not widely available here in Chattanooga. When I asked someone at the Wild Turkey Distillery about it in October, I was told they originally expected rollout to be a few months, but now they expect it to take until the middle of 2026 before it’s truly “shelf stable.” It should retail for about $45 to 50. I’m going to highly recommend it at that price…honestly, I may like this better than the Jimmy Russell 70th Anniversary! (We’ll never know for sure, however, as I don’t have any to compare it to.) If you see it for substantially more money than that, just be patient. I personally wouldn’t pay more than $60 for a bottle that has an MSRP of $45…buying it for more than that just encourages bad behavior by liquor stores and third-party sellers (which is how you get nonsense like the prices of Weller 12 Year (also about a $50 MSRP). If everyone would stop paying bullshit prices for those bottles, you’d see the prices drop closer to MSRP PDQ, IMO.
