Over the last few years, Wild Turkey has grown on me. I'll freely admit a lot of that comes from having tasted their bourbon from many decades ago which is truly some fantastic stuff. I'm more hesitant to praise many of their current offerings but I do really enjoy Russell's Reserve Single Barrel. Where modern Wild Turkey really shines for me though is their standard 101 bourbon. What I love about it is that it's not very expensive, available everywhere, has lots of spice so it works great in cocktails, and is just an all round solid value for the money. So given that I really like rye whiskey, the 101 rye should be on par or better, right?
No Age Statement; 50.5% ABV; $38 1L
Nose: Eucalyptus, menthol, ethanol, and wet cardboard. It's thin on wood and sweet notes and smells like a young rye whiskey.
Taste: Better than the nose with more sweet notes and some wood depth. The rye notes take backseat to the sweets and don't really hit until the back of the palate. There are some rough young ethanol notes here and a high presence of new make grainy flavors.
Thoughts: I don't really like this and it borders on being kind of a mess. It tastes young and it's not really that spicy for a rye. I'm guessing this is the bare minimum four years old to not carry an age statement and also close to the bare minimum 51% rye. I think the 101 bourbon walks all over this as it has better depth, almost as much spice, more balance, and on top of that it's cheaper.
Rating: C-
Note that price is not considered when assigning a rating.
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