Today, January 20, marks the fifth anniversary of this blog, which started out as whiskeyjarblog.wordpress.com and then evolved to whiskeyjar.blog. Back in 2017, this blog had a grand total of 3,810 visitors. In 2021, we had 78,600 visitors. That is quite a lot of growth in five years. To celebrate, I am reviewing the latest in the Wild Turkey Master’s Keep series, this one being called “One.”

The Wild Turkey Master’s Keep 17 Year Old was so good I was really excited to get the latest Master’s Keep release despite its $200 price tag. Frankly, every limited release offering I have tried from the Russells has proven to be outstanding. They know bourbon and they do it very well.

Master’s Keep One is a pretty interesting release that is called One because it attempts to unify the differences in taste in bourbon between the father and son master distillers at Wild Turkey, Jimmy and Eddie Russell. Jimmy feels that bourbon reaches its peak between eight and ten years old; Eddie likes his bourbon older. Eddie Russell picked some barrels of nine and ten year old whiskey that his Dad Jimmy would have really liked and blended them with some 14 year old whiskey, which is more Eddie’s taste. After blending these barrels together, Eddie re-barreled the whiskey into new heavily toasted and charred oak barrels, much like Kentucky Owl, Old Carter, and Four Gate do with some of their whiskies. This method of maturation, while often creating outstanding results, practically doubles the cost of producing the bourbon through the use of a second newly charred cask. These barrels then rested in a timber rickhouse that is one of Eddie Russell’s favorites, Tyrone G. This Master’s Keep is bottled at Wild Turkey’s standard 101 proof. As with previous releases of Master’s Keep, this bottle comes in an impressive box and the bottle itself is impressive looking.

The color on this bourbon is a deep amber with flecks of gold and mahogany; with seriously long legs on the swirl. The nose is amazing and velvety – dried dark fruits, oak, leather, cinnamon, light vanilla, and roasted caramel. You just want to keep nosing this bourbon. On the palate, the dark fruits start trending toward apple pie with heavy cinnamon and light caramel, with the apples adding some acidity, with some vanilla and almond extract in the crust, with oak on the back end. Wonderful mouthfeel despite being cut to proof, although with Wild Turkey barrelling at only 115 proof, this whiskey was probably not cut very much. On the finish, the apple pie fades into warm apple cider with cinnamon and oak, and the finish is very elegant as it lingers.

Really amazing bourbon, and for a limited release it has pretty decent availability based on what my local received. A great way to toast five years of whiskeyjar.blog!