Background:
When the details regarding the new limited-edition series from Wild Turkey, the Austin Nichols Archives, came out a year ago, my initial reaction was scepticism.
It had brought up associations with what some critics call “stuck culture” – endless loops of nostalgia pandering, fan service, reboots, and remakes. You see it in movies, music, and just about anything that can be repackaged to stand on the shoulders of something that was great once.
On the other hand, there was trust in what Eddie and Bruce Russell, and their team, have been doing at Wild Turkey – for decades, but especially the last few years. As much as I love vintage Turkey, I have been impressed with their limited editions like Russell’s 13, Russell’s 15, Wild Turkey 12, and Beacon, just to name a few. That trust was enough for me to put aside my reservations and seek out a bottle of the latest Austin Nichols Archives Gold Foil Edition 16-year.
Before we dive in, I recommend you listen to Bruce Russell speak about this release directly, instead of the countless influencers regurgitating the press release and often editorializing incorrect information. This pre-release chat covers plenty of detail.
What’s in a name?
The new series, Austin Nichols Archives, replaces the previous Wild Turkey limited-edition product line, Master’s Keep. It appears to coincide with a potential retirement of Eddie Russell, who has just celebrated his 45th anniversary at the distillery, since Master’s Keep was his playground between 2015 and 2025. It may still be years away, and Eddie may simply switch into a “Master Distiller Emeritus” mode, but the writing is on the wall for Bruce to take on more of a leading role.
But back to the Gold Foil Edition – it is the first entry in the series paying tribute to the iconic Wild Turkey expressions from the past. In this case, it’s a reference to “Cheesy Gold Foil,” the unofficial nickname of the 12-year, 101-proof bottling that sported the shiny yellow livery between 1985 and 1994. I took an in-depth look at the 12/101 here, if you’d like more background.
As for CGF (call me a pedant, but I think “CGF” should be retained for the original, so I’ll refer to the new one as “GFE”), it has a hierarchy of its own: the 1985 release is widely assumed to be sourced distillate from a defunct distillery called Old Boone, which also supplied the whiskey for the original Pappy 20 in 1994. There were no 1986 and 1987 editions; there is a debate on whether 1988 is Old Boone or a blend of Boone and Wild Turkey. Anything from 1989 through 1992 domestically, plus two more years overseas until 1994, are presumed to be Wild Turkey’s own liquid.
In terms of rarity, the 1985 is the most desirable, followed by 1988, and then the rest in chronological order from the earliest to the latest. The packaging and promotional materials for the Gold Foil Edition call out 1988 specifically, along with the ‘80s and ‘90s more generally – not sure if it’s an implicit acknowledgement that the 1985 whiskey was not made at Wild Turkey, but I don’t see much scandal in that – Wild Turkey started as an NDP brand, after all.
There is also some confusion about the Austin Nichols name and what it applies to. I’ve seen references to the “Austin Nichols distillery” and “Austin Nichols, the distiller,” none of which have ever existed. I’ll refer you to another post for the origin story of Wild Turkey and how it relates to Austin Nichols.
The reason Austin Nichols is associated with vintage Wild Turkey in particular, is because its branding was most prominent on the labels from the very beginning and until the 2000s. But there was no “Austin Nichols distillery” – there was the Ripy Brothers/Boulevard/JTS Brown plant that Austin Nichols, a New York grocery supplier-turned-NDP, used to source product for its bourbon brand and eventually purchased in 1971, renaming it the Wild Turkey Distillery. That distillery’s column still, which had been in operation since 1935, was decommissioned in 2011, essentially creating a new Wild Turkey distillery that year (more on that later).
Austin Nichols ceased to exist as an independent company in 1968, when it was purchased by Liggett & Myers. It was then sold by Liggett to Pernod Ricard in 1980, to fend off a hostile takeover from Grand Metropolitan. Considering Grand Met eventually became part of Diageo, there was a non-trivial chance Wild Turkey could’ve ended up in Diageo’s grip by the 1990s, which is a scary scenario if you know your bourbon history.
Wild Turkey remained in the Pernod Ricard stable until 2009, so the “golden era” referred to on GFE’s packaging largely fell within the three “French” decades (“Pernod Ricard Archives” would be historically accurate, but I don’t think Campari would like that).
In another twist, when Pernod sold Wild Turkey to Campari, they split the Austin Nichols trademark – Pernod retained the Austin, Nichols & Co. name as one of their DBA holding companies for North American operations, while Campari got the Austin, Nichols Distilling Co. as part of the purchase. That allowed Campari to keep using the name on its labels, but it has been gradually phased out – first the full phrase was replaced with small letters “AN” and the founding year 1855 in 2011; after the latest redesign a few years ago, all references to Austin Nichols have been scrubbed from the front label and moved to the neck label in a tiny font. That’s why seeing the full name in bold letters again feels like such a throwback.
What’s in a taste?
Let’s get to tasting. I will once again encourage you to listen to Bruce in his own words about all the details, so I will only mention that the 2008-distilled barrels for GFE were pulled from Camp Nelson D, E, and F, with the batch proof of over 140, before being reduced to 120 proof for non-chill filtered bottling.
I will focus the review on GFE, but I will include my notes on how it compared to a selection of modern releases – Russell’s 15; Russell’s 13, batch 1; and Beacon, along with the one I could not leave out – a 1991 CGF (plus a little of a 1992 one). Bruce has taken great care to say GFE is not meant to be a recreation but rather a tribute, which I appreciate – but I will still look for any connections, however abstract they may be.
Gold Foil Edition 16:
On the nose, vanilla cream with some citrus notes pushing it toward the cream cheese territory; prominent sweet oak, red berries and oxidized stone fruit, Vietnamese iced coffee, tobacco, honey, nutty oloroso sherry, brown sugar, almost butterscotch, going into chocolate, nutmeg/sweet baking spice. Full palate, woody, cola, caramel, red berry, dried fruit, tobacco. Long finish; oaky, slightly drying; clove, flamed orange peel, dried cranberry, caramel.
How is the 1991 Cheesy Gold Foil different?
Different profile altogether. Loaded with vintage funk, it’s heavy caramel and butterscotch, floral, with some almond and hazelnut notes, chocolate-covered raisin. The biggest difference is in how it drinks – zero ethanol, an evenly distributed slow-burn progression of oak, spice, tobacco, oxidized fruit and sweet notes. The empty glass smells like the best collection of baking spice you’ve ever smelled. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, I like the 1992 CGF just a touch more because of more prominent fruit notes (storage conditions of individual bottles could play a role).
How is Russell’s 15 different?
We are back to the modern high-aged Turkey profile here: blackberry jam and dried fruit, lots of caramel, vanilla frosting, honey, and tobacco. The biggest difference to me is oak – on Russell’s 15 it takes on this “antique” quality that I usually find on George T. Stagg. It’s big oak, big caramel, big berry – big everything.
How is Beacon different?
Once again, lots of similarities with GFE: Blackberry, brown sugar, nutmeg, chocolate, red fruit, cherry, tobacco. But just a little less finesse and depth.
How is Russell’s 13, batch 1 different?
Nice vanilla and blackberry notes, but this time it fell a little behind the pack, with Beacon winning the re-match.
Rating: (t8ke scale for reference below):
Gold Foil Edition: 9
1991 CGF: 9.5
Russell’s 15: 9.5
Beacon: 8.75
Russell’s 13, batch 1: 8.5
1 | Disgusting | So bad I poured it out
2 | Poor | I wouldn’t consume by choice
3 | Bad | Multiple flaws
4 | Sub-par | Not bad, but many things I’d rather have
5 | Good | Good, just fine
6 | Very Good | A cut above
7 | Great | Well above average
8 | Excellent | Really quite exceptional
9 | Incredible | An all-time favorite
10 | Perfect | Perfect
Gold Foil Edition is an excellent bourbon. However, it stands among multiple peers, not above them.
If you’ve had any of the recent Turkey limited editions – we are talking RR15 and early RR13, Beacon, any of the Single Rickhouse releases, maybe even Generations and the first batch of Wild Turkey 12/101 from 2021 – you’ve had this profile. They come from some of the last runs of the old still (some will have post-2011 distillate mixed in), mostly pulled from Camp Nelson warehouses. You can expect that woody cola profile, with lots of cherry and dried fruit, sweet baking spice, rich vanilla and caramel. Each expression will have different proportions of each, which will likely determine the favorite for your palate, but they are cut from the same cloth. Russell’s 15 is still my favorite, sitting a little heavier on the palate with deeper oak, but these bourbons will be almost interchangeable depending on your preference.
Now, is GFE a rightful heir to the almighty CGF? Does it need one? I’ve read some reviews that proclaimed GFE nailing the dusty profile (I don’t agree) and even improving on the original CGF (also don’t agree). The profiles are just too different, which was expected. There are little flashes of flavors you find in dusty bourbon on GFE – a cream cheese note here, oxidized dark fruit there – but dusty bourbon it ain’t. As the kids say, Bruce understood the assignment: He knows you can’t recreate the past, so he delivered the next best thing – a top modern profile that may not last for very long, as most of the old-still whiskey has reached peak maturity and has been bottled.
You can parse similarities in notes between dusty and modern bourbon, but the largest difference is in how it drinks, which is the hardest to describe. Some of the answers lie in the past, but some are right there on the surface:
Firstly, Camp Nelson has become almost synonymous with top-tier Turkey in recent years, but many reviewers gloss over the fact that those warehouses have only been used by the distillery since the 1990s. For most of Wild Turkey’s history, including the “golden era” in the ’70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, they utilized Tyrone rickhouses. There is a reason why Jimmy Russell prefers Tyrone – that’s where he’s aged most of his “greatest hits.”
Bruce mentioned that the highest-proof barrels at top floors of Tyrone max out around 130 proof, while they go up to 160 at Camp Nelson. When Wild Turkey used the lower entry proof of 107 prior to 2004, many barrels were dumped at 104-105 proof, some even lower. Tyrone-aged CGF likely did not have much water added to proof it down to 101, the difference you can tell on the silky texture with zero ethanol burn. The late Dave Pickrell used to say that to get the best flavor profile, “you should look for a bourbon that is distilled at a relatively low proof, entered into the barrel at a relatively low proof, and bottled at very close to the proof at which the product comes out of the barrel.” I think there is still truth to that sentiment.
A part of me wonders what a modern Wild Turkey expression would taste like with the historic entry proof of 107, aged at Tyrone in extra-seasoned barrels, using a blend of 12-year whiskey with some older stocks thrown in. But you can’t really charge 400 dollars for something with a 12-year age statement (especially not after the excellent but short-lived revival of the 12/101 just a few years ago that went for 60 bucks in some markets), and it would not be economically viable for many reasons. Which brings me to…
What’s in a price?
If you think that a master distiller or blender comes up with a whiskey in their lab, mad-scientist style, then proudly tosses it in front of the corporate and tells them to bottle it to his or her exact vision, think again.
Most new expressions are born in the marketing or R&D departments, informed by corporate forecasting, strategic alignment, market and competitor analysis, and other decidedly unromantic factors. The marketing folks will then go to the people who make the whiskey and ask them to find the liquid that would fit the specs. I don’t doubt that Bruce has been carrying this tribute idea for a long time, but it wouldn’t go anywhere without the corporate approval.
Campari decided to continue to play in the ultra-premium tier of American whiskey, no doubt buoyed by the success of the expressions in this line-up. The last Master’s Keep Beacon had the MSRP of 300 dollars. The latest Russell’s 13 (45th Anniversary) is at 200. Single Rickhouse releases are 300. Russell’s 15 was 250 two years ago.
Where to, Campari? To the moon, it appears – desperate headlines about the glut be damned, 400 dollars is the cost of admission into the Archives. That’s short of the most expensive Wild Turkey release to-date, Generations at 450 dollars, but the bottle count on Gold Foil Edition is much higher. Bruce mentions that the higher age and proof on GFE were necessary to match the complexity of the original, but I imagine having those stats was also required to justify the price. Would the whiskey be any different in a tube-less bottle labeled “Russell’s 16”? No. Are we paying 100 dollars more for 10 dollars’ worth of packaging? Yes. But I respect Bruce’s vision to honor his grandfather and shine the spotlight on the distillery’s history.
The strategy makes sense. Despite the overall slowdown, you have different segments of the market that travel at different speeds (no one is immune from the K-shaped economy): The lower and mid-tier are hurting from the loss of the more casual customers cutting down on their COVID-era levels of spending and consumption. That’s the segment the media likes to focus on for its doom-and-gloom headlines.
But the American-whiskey landscape has matured a lot in the last decade and a half, so you have a core group of well-versed enthusiasts who are selective in what they buy but are open to spending more money on something they deem special enough. It’s the person who would rather buy one 400-dollar bottle than five 80-dollar ones, because they already have dozens of those. They want a story, a conversation piece, and let’s be honest, a trophy.
Campari still made money on selling Russell’s 13 for 70 dollars in 2021, if you want a reference point on profit-making margins. They realized they could make a lot more by charging secondary prices that the enthusiast segment was willing to pay. Some people justify the higher price tags by assuming that they cut into the flippers’ bottom lines (raise the floor to lower the ceiling) and discourage the secondary. But flippers simply raised the ceiling in response to the raised floor and deployed their own “dynamic” demand-based pricing: whereas they made 180 bucks by flipping a 70-dollar bottle of RR13 for 250 bucks in 2021, they would make more by selling RR15 for 500 at release and 1000 today. The only thing that works against the secondary market is to dramatically expand the supply (see Blanton’s and other mid-tier Buffalo Trace). That’s not really a lever to pull with truly limited releases.
The second argument is that no one is entitled to buy rare whiskey if they can’t afford it: “No one owes you a Ferrari on a Kia budget.” That is absolutely true and I agree! But the issue is that we have an entire segment of bourbon fans who are completely priced out of the limited editions – the people who would begrudgingly pay 150 for RR13 on secondary or pushed to buy RR15 for 250 at retail are simply tapping out at 400.
I made a post comparing historical pricing adjusted for inflation that demonstrates how blown out the distance between shelfers and limited editions has become. It’s a market reality and I don’t get worked up about it anymore, but let’s drop the condescending advice of “Just buy Rare Breed.” It wasn’t too long ago that an average person could buy Rare Breed and the LE that cost 2-3x of the baseline price, not 10-15x. How many diehards can brands afford to lose in a slowing market? It’s a question not unique to Wild Turkey.
So is there anything in GFE to justify the premium price? Being some of the last pre-2011 distillate has some real value to me. The new still has had its issues but it should be dialed in by now. I’m sure it’s producing quality whiskey – but will it be as good (or simply different) as those final 2000s runs? Is GFE a “modern dusty” in the making? Time will tell.
I will wrap up by saying that sometimes these deep dives can come off as unnecessarily nit-picky and preachy. It’s not lost on me, and I think they can rob the joy out of the experience if used purely to score factual points. I do it because I like to peel the curtain back a little and peek behind it – but it shouldn’t take away from the fact that Bruce has made a terrific blend using the barrels laid down by his father. It’s a truly generational release. If you can find it, forget about the history for a minute, and just enjoy it.
Thanks for reading and cheers!
