In Louisville, Kentucky, bourbon is everywhere, in everything. Chefs imbue their cookery with bourbon notes, baristas brew bourbon-infused coffee, and chocolate makers fold bourbon into their confections. Shops sell bourbon lip balm, candles, lotion, soaps, and shampoo. (“Have you been drinking?” “No, I took a shower.”)
There are cutting boards, lighting fixtures and furniture made from bourbon barrels so you can dowse your house in bourbon feng shui. Don’t want to live, drink, eat, or bathe in bourbon? Then light it on fire. Join Louisvillians and visitors alike and smoke bourbon-infused cigars. Nevertheless, the shining star of Louisville is bourbon at its purest, served neat or in cocktails in bars where lengthy backbars showcase hundreds of bottles. It is here, in its natural habitat, that Wild Turkey bourbon is most abundant.
It’s complicated how bourbon rose phoenix-like from the ashes of Prohibition and then fell from grace to rise again to its uber-popular state. The spirit’s current renown didn’t hatch overnight; no, making this omelette took a dozen eggs. In the latter part of the 20th century, it fledged its wings with premiumisation. Twenty-first-century social media soon gave the category a massive follow and a voice, and as the mainstream tuned in, bourbon entered popular culture. Shows like Mad Men put bourbon on the telly, and young people gravitated to it as a resurgent cocktail movement fanned its own wings across the planet. Bourbon went global, telling an authentic story, and distilleries opened their doors to visitors. Yet, if not for people with the determination of Jimmy Russell, bourbon may never have taken flight.
“In the whiskey community, more often than not, we give proper credit to bourbon’s road warriors, like Jimmy Russell, Booker Noe, Elmer T Lee, and Parker Beam, to name a few,” says David Jennings, Wild Turkey whiskey expert and author of American Spirit. In the late ’70s, clear spirit’s swollen popularity aligned with changing tastes, and just as a young Louisville native named Muhammed Ali had done in the boxing ring, vodka knocked out whiskey. In response, most whiskey makers made their expressions lighter, but Wild Turkey counter punched. “A few distillers, like Jimmy, did everything they could to save bourbon, even if that meant going to some no-name town in the middle of nowhere to sit in a room with 10 fans. Then that’s what they would do.”
Wild Turkey’s roots took hold during the second half of the 19th century when father and son James and Thomas Ripy established their distilling business. In 1935, after prohibition, Thomas Ripy’s son, Ernest W, rebuilt the distillery. Soon after, a business executive named Thomas McCarthy brought bourbon sourced from Ripy and other distilleries on a wild turkey hunting trip with friends. One of McCarthy’s buddies suggested he get more of that wild turkey the next time they went hunting. The name had a ring to it, hatching into a brand.
Just like turkeys returning to their nests to nurture their young, in 1950, former Ripy’s distiller Bill Hughes came back and four years later began nurturing a new hire named Jimmy Russell. No job was beneath Russell, even if that meant sweeping the floors. He quickly moved into Quality Control.
Today, placards at the Wild Turkey Distillery describe each part of the production process, from the yeast strain used in the early 1950s to corn from the same local source since the 1960s. It’s no coincidence that the dates align with Jimmy’s early timeline.
“Jimmy’s the first person who ever wrote anything down,” says his grandson and Wild Turkey associate blender Bruce Russell. “So many times you’ll hear the words ’50s or ’60s because the ’50s is when he started, and in 1967, he took over everything.” In 1967, Jimmy Russell was a modern man and began recording in detail what the distillery was doing. The yeast strain, for example, dates back to the end of Prohibition, although the distillery likely used it long before then. “In quality control, Jimmy was in charge of the yeast, in which he took much pride. When I was a kid, he would keep some of it off-site at his house and his brother’s in Petri dishes in an old basement refrigerator.”
As a new master distiller, Jimmy didn’t change anything when he took stewardship of Wild Turkey 101. “The distillers back then were different,” continues Jennings. “They learned hands-on, taught by old-school distillers. There wasn’t a formal education on making bourbon.” Bill Hughes had taken Jimmy under his wing and taught him everything about the business. “101 was thrown into Jimmy’s hands, which is why he didn’t change it,” says his son and now master distiller Eddie Russell, who started at the distillery in 1981. “In the business world, it’s normally the people who are standing still who get passed by. But unusually, when Jimmy stood still, it built Wild Turkey because everyone else started changing, but he didn’t.”
“Jimmy was just worried that if we changed, it would change the bourbon’s quality,” says Bruce. Wild Turkey uses a hammer mill and crushes the grain down to a coarse grist because this is how Jimmy did it. They don’t use GMO grain because Jimmy didn’t. Jimmy didn’t come into the industry using enzymes for conversion, so they use more malted barley in the mashbill than others. This is how it was done, each step creating a Russell biome that has cemented Wild Turkey’s richly flavourful consistency.
Russell’s decision to continue making 101 the same way shouldn’t be attributed to stubbornness. In the 1980s, when bourbon was out cold, Jimmy didn’t take the bait, instead continuing to adhere to tradition. This could be perceived as resisting change, but that perception overlooks his innovations in other areas. “The processes didn’t change, but he did change many other things along the way, and I think for the better,” says Bruce. Jimmy Russell countered with a bourbon portfolio that became the industry standard as other distilleries disappeared into the light.
His portfolio was instrumental in premiumising bourbon with releases such as Wild Turkey Rare Breed and Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit, a single-barrel release when the concept was practically unknown except for Blanton’s. He was also the first on the market with a bourbon liqueur. Moreover, he travelled to Japan and Australia, bringing bourbon to people infatuated with its flavours.
“While everyone else was lowering the proof and changing the recipes to try and compete with vodka, Jimmy said, ‘No, I’m not doing it.’ Not changing is part of the huge growth that we are seeing,” says Eddie Russell. “For the first 10 years, I thought my name was no because I wanted to change everything, and Jimmy was like no, no, no. Then you realise he’s the one who built this. I knew then, don’t change what he built but here is my path. I can bring out different products, and it was the bartending community that brought men and women along to enjoy Old Fashioneds and Manhattans. It was a younger generation that we’d never seen. I’ve stressed to Bruce from day one that you can screw up my whiskies but never screw up Jimmy’s, or he’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.”
Wild Turkey staving off extinction could explain why the bourbon is everywhere, including the bars an hour away in Louisville.
Muhammad Ali trained in the Headline Boxing Gym, now home to the city’s Clayton & Crume, a leather goods store. This is sacred ground, the training place of the man who said, “If you even dream of beating me, you’d better wake up and apologise.” This attitude is captured in the store, which makes and sells a range of leather products, including bourbon coasters, leather-wrapped glass flasks, and rocks glasses. But, tucked to the side is the Stitch speakeasy, demonstrating bourbon’s ubiquity. It’s named for Ali’s sparring partner Rudell Stitch and serves a delicious Old Fashioned with Wild Turkey 101. The fragrant citrus oils from the orange and leather in the store float like a butterfly while the bourbon’s spices sting like a bee.
Seven Cocktails + Bourbon in the East Market District serves a barrel-aged Boulevardier featuring Wild Turkey 101. Bar Vetti, an Italian Restaurant down the street, makes a Rye-Nar — Wild Turkey 101 Rye and Cynar Amaro mixed, then aged for four months in a charred oak barrel. What looks like a cheesy gold foil Wild Turkey at Neat Bourbon Bar and Bottle Shop glows with beauty as your glass fills with rare Wild Turkey expressions from long-gone releases.
In 1954, when Jimmy Russell began his journey, a horse named Determine beat Hasty Road in the 80th running of the Kentucky Derby. It’s as if Churchill Downs could read the future. Now, with his grandson Bruce Russell at the distillery, Jimmy’s story continues. He has carved his path, Eddie has done the same, and now Bruce is on his own path with whiskies that stylistically sit in the middle of what Jimmy and Eddie created. New trends will come, and they will go, but with a Russell watching over the roost, Wild Turkey will continue to thrive.
