To honor a legend, Wild Turkey reaches back to its ‘Cheesy Gold Foil’ days
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Wild Turkey is launching the Austin Nichols Archives Collection with Gold Foil Edition.
- Gold Foil Edition is a 16-year-old, 120-proof straight bourbon available in June.
- Fans can sign up May 19 for tickets to a May 26 Lawrenceburg release event.
What to do with all this extra bourbon aging in the warehouses these days? How about look at what Kentucky whiskey brands did the last time this happened?
Kentucky distiller Wild Turkey is launching a new limited edition line that is designed to reference past favorites.
The new Austin Nichols Archives Collection launches with the Gold Foil Edition, based on a cult favorite from the 1980s, called by fans “Cheesy Gold Foil.”
These were bottles released in the 1980s and 1990s, a time when bourbon was largely out of favor and many distilleries put out older-than-usual whiskeys. The bottles of 12-year-old whiskey originally sold for well under $100. Now, if you can find one, expect to pay much, much more.
With many distillers sitting on extra bourbon these days, Wild Turkey is taking that as inspiration, releasing a 16-year-old 120-proof straight bourbon.
It will be available in limited quantities in select markets beginning in June for a suggested retail price of $400.
Fans can sign up at wildturkeybourbon.com for tickets beginning May 19 for a special release event at the Visitors Center in Lawrenceburg on May 26. They will be able to purchase bottles at the event.
The new series is being led by associate master blender Bruce Russell, who is carrying on the Russell family legacy. According to a news release, Bruce first conceived the series more than a decade ago to honor his grandfather, Jimmy Russell, and to reimagining beloved classic bottlings through a modern lens.
“Austin Nichols Archives has been a labor of love, and I’m excited to finally share it with bourbon lovers everywhere,” said Russell, in a news release. “Gold Foil Edition was the perfect bourbon to launch the collection. Inspired by a personal favorite of mine and of many Wild Turkey fans, I drew on everything I’ve learned from my father and grandfather to create a whiskey that honors the Wild Turkey legacy.”
The series is named for the historic wholesale grocer and spirit company Austin Nichols that owned the Wild Turkey brand at the time.
The Gold Foil Edition pays homage to the whiskeys of the “Glut Era,” according to the release, when Jimmy Russell often blended older barrels into standard bottlings, creating bourbons with dept, intensity and “mature oak funk.”
To recreate that flavor profile, Gold Foil Edition was crafted with a longer aging process and a higher proof, using barrels sourced from Wild Turkey’s Camp Nelson F, D and E rickhouses.
The result has notes of Wild Turkey’s “signature funk,” dark fruit and mature oak, along with cherry cola, clove, dark honey and an extremely long finish of peppery spice, brown sugar and leather, according to the tasting notes.
Wild Turkey, which today is owned by Italian spirits company Campari, has been produced since 1940 in Lawrenceburg, where legendary master distillers Jimmy Russell, and now his son Eddie, are the faces of the brand.
