Onyx & Amber WTB01-102 (Wild Turkey) Single Barrel

Luxe Liquor × Burlington Wine & Spirits × BourbonBoot single barrel

Barrel WTB01-102

MSRP: $99.99

Mash: 75% corn, 13% rye, 12% malted barley

Proof: 118.2

Age: 8 years

Nose: brown butter, honeycomb, tobacco, musty oak, grilled peach, pastry dough. This is sweet and enticing with hints of earthiness strewn throughout. It's off profile for Turkey while still feeling familiar.

Palate: the nose follows through to the palate while ramping up the honeycomb sweetness. A more classic Wild Turkey nuttiness shows off on the mid to back palate. It's not overpowering, but instead feels like a beautiful layer to add to the pastry house of the rest of the pour.

Finish: medium to long finish with tobacco, brown butter and peanut shell

Rating: I won't rate my pick (Out of Hoard, Buy, Try, Pass)

Thoughts: This is Wild Turkey that was aged at the warehouses at Castle & Key. For those that don't know, Castle & Key lives in a valley of sorts in KY with a stream running by it. It's truly a stunning Distillery grounds, but we're not worried about that at the moment. Whiskey ages differently in those conditions. It tends to age slower and more gentle. The result? When we tried the sample this was a sweet pastry of a pour. When I first existed this, I was floored. Aging just six months in Colorado ramped up the profile overall, making it much more pronounced. But it also awakened the Turkey. While still an off profile experience, the earthiness and slight nuttiness Wild Turkey is known for is layered in nicely to the rest of the experience. This is a fantastic bottle.

What's the deal?: Onyx & Amber is located in Denver Colorado, and has been not so quietly sourcing some absolutely killers from different locations. They have had a large amount from MGP out of Indiana, Green River in Kentucky, and also a good handful from Willett and Wild Turkey. One of my favorite things about Onyx & Amber is the transparency, they do their absolute best to disclose where the liquid is coming from. They also do a great job of disclosing how long a barrel has aged in Colorado. Although it may not seem essential, the time a barrel has spent aging in Colorado impacts the liquid to a very high degree. This Wild Turkey barrel is the perfect example of that. We sampled it the same week it got off the truck, and it was great, but it was very muted overall. We were still excited for it because it was a really dang good barrel of Wild Turkey, but it could have a little more character to it. The 6-8 months it spent aging in Colorado brought it to perfection. It ramped up the profile and gave it that extra life we were hoping would somehow just happen. The magic of Colorado.