The irony of this whiskey is that it tastes so good even though the master distiller didn’t know exactly what he was making when he set out to concoct it and was working within an age range that he would normally deem inappropriate for Bourbon.

When Wild Turkey asked the venerable Jimmy Russell to create a limited-edition, 15-year-old Bourbon, he thought the intention was to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the parent company Austin, Nichols, an event that comes in 2005. Actually, the management was surreptitiously asking Russell to create a “Tribute” to his own 50th anniversary at the distillery this year. This meant keeping the commemorative bottling a secret from a man who misses very little that goes on in his plant. Somehow the sleight of hand occurred and the result is a handsome bottle in a sort of scroll-case wooden package that extols the virtues of the modest Russell