For a brief, glorious moment in the late 90s, well before my bourbon days, Wild Turkey released a single barrel, cask strength offering called Kentucky Legend. Nick named ‘Donut’ due to its unique bottle shape, Kentucky Legend truly lived up to its name is highly sought after by dusty Turkey fans. I had the good fortune of getting to try the Legend and take home a small sample to write this review thanks to a legendary Austin bourbon hunter. Let’s see how this lives up to the hype!
Wild Turkey Kentucky Legend
Age: NAS
Abv: 115.8 proof
Neat
Nose: Very rich and complex with caramel, leather, pipe tobacco, warm baking spices and faint floral notes
Taste: First off this had an amazing mouthfeel! It was thick and creamy with caramel and vanilla notes backed by warm baking spices, rich oak and that same faint floral note from the nose
Finish: Long and warm, bordering on hot, with more baking spices, cinnamon and rick oak with a bit of caramel
Conclusion
This was fantastic whiskey that blended a lot of the notes from dusty Turkey with the modern notes that I am more familiar with. I definitely preferred it to the sample of 1997 Wild Turkey 12 year that I tried. It had some similar floral and dusty leather notes but they were subtler and added complexity instead of making the whole thing taste like a perfumed couch. The only thing holding it back from a perfect 10 for me was that this finish was a little too hot even with a couple drops of water. I didn’t have enough to experiment with watering it down to 100-110 proof to see if it got it there.
I am very sad that I couldn’t side by side this with my reigning Turkey King, Moonshine RR CGF, and disappointed that I missed out on the Single Cask Nation Wild Turkey bottles.
This bottle lived up to the name and the hype though I doubt I will ever own a bottle.
TL;DR: Truly a legend, but the heat on finish was a touch much for me
9 - a favorite I’d like to keep on my shelf
Scale
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