River Roots: Straight Bourbon "BuffTurkey" - Luxe Liquor/BourbonBoot Single Barrel

Barrel 912 - BuffKnight

MSRP: $379.99

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

Proof: 124

Age: 16yr

Nose: grape big league chew, vanilla nougat, dried tobacco, toasted oak, raw sugar cane, fig, sweet plum, petrichor

Palate: the nose follows to the palate, but evolves and builds on the earthiness, damp soil, sawn charred oak, a hint of smokiness rises from that charred oak, beyond the earthiness up front welcomes concord grape and plum, a dark molasses coats the back of the fruitiness, the back of the palate is dark aged leather with a brown sugar whip

Finish: an incredibly long finish where cracked age leather mingles with a subtle sweetness before transforming in a peppery rye spice

Rating: The best bourbon barrel I've ever picked (Out of Hoard, Buy, Try, Pass)

Thoughts: the nose explodes with a fruity sweetness with earthy undertones and dark juicy stone fruit. Then you taste it. Dark and full of sweet oak with fruit and earth abound. From nose to finish, this is a powerful whiskey. When I picked this barrel, it had beat out 2020 GTS and Russell's 15 in a blind. Drinking this again now, that doesn't surprise me. This takes the best aspects of both pinnacle whiskies from Buffalo Trace and Wild Turkey and builds on them. I don't know how that's possible, but it was achieved here. This is by far the best BuffTurkey I've had, and easily the best single barrel bourbon I've picked to date. I don't see any possible way that this is dethroned as the number one whiskey for 2025. An absolute monster from River Roots from start to finish.

Whats the Deal?: So what is a "BuffTurkey?" There has been quite a bit of debate as to why these barrels came to be. There are theories that Wild Turkey had shut down distillation while installing a new still, but the most widely accepted theory is that Wild Turkey wanted to ramp up distillation and used Buffalo Trace to fill those gaps. Now we've covered the why... But how about the what? BuffTurkey is a loving term for the barrels of whiskey that were contract distilled by Buffalo Trace and then aged at Wild Turkey, they used the Wild Turkey grain mashbill, but used the Buffalo Trace barrel entry proof (125), and the Buffalo Trace yeast strains. As a result, you get this strange liquid that isn't quite Wild Turkey, but it isn't quite Buffalo Trace either. The main issue? They are wildly inconsistent. Some are low proof, some are high proof, some lean Wild Turkey profile, most lean Buffalo Trace profile. No matter what, they are good whiskey, but the issue is the price. These are expensive barrels. Some of the barrels are absolutely worth the price, and others are like a really good Eagle Rare that costs way too much. This BuffTurkey, "BuffKnight," leans much more into the Wild Turkey profile, which is my preference by a lot. I have tried almost a dozen different BuffTurkeys at this point, and unfortunately I think the Wild Turkey-esque barrels are much harder to come by.