WILD TURKEY MASTER’S KEEP
17 Year Bottled In Bond (2020)MASH BILL – 75% Corn, 13% Rye, 12% Malted Barley
PROOF – 100
AGE – 17 years
DISTILLERY – Wild Turkey Distillery
PRICE – $184 (I miss those days—as if even $184 was a “good” price!)
WORTH BUYING? – Yes
As I wrote in Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I love me some Knob Creek and Four Roses this time of the year. But no brand of bourbon says Fall quite like Wild Turkey does. The particular balance and range of baking spices, caramel, cherry, and oak conjure harvest season pastries and Thanksgiving pies.
I opened this bottle and first posted notes on it for Thanksgiving in 2025. A very unoriginal idea, to post about Wild Turkey on the whiskey social meds around Thanksgiving. But the pairing can’t be denied. It just works.
Also, at that time, I was at the end of a particularly challenging week and feeling caught between disheartened and grateful. I wanted something in my glass I knew would be good. This bottle was exactly what I needed! I uncorked it, poured a glass and took it out into my garden. The late afternoon autumn sun was casting the grasses and flowers in its golden amber light, like a memory still lingering in a fading old photograph. The bourbon was warm, sweet and savory at once. Perfect.
Now, nearly a year later, the bottle is at its final pours—a thing also very like autumn, when nature draws near its natural ends. Those same yellow flowers in my backyard came around again this year, and are well into their dual process of blooming and fading. The afternoon sky is clear and blue, the sun’s ample warmth etched by crisp cool breezes coming in from the San Francisco bay in irregular waves. A contemplative day for a contemplative mood, and a whiskey worth contemplating.
And so here we are, almost a year after uncorking and on this bottle’s second or third to last pour. These brief notes were taken using a simple brandy glass.
COLOR – gorgeous soft and medium oranges that turn rusty, cherry, and fiery in the light
NOSE – oh man… baked cherry, well-aged and sweet oak, a dusting of cinnamon and allspice, lightly toasted vanilla, a faint thick caramel note
TASTE – the oak and baking spices mix with the 100 proof to create a gentle grittiness stirred into the bourbon’s thick syrupy texture, with the oak and caramel taking the lead over the baked cherry
FINISH – the baked cherry leans forward again to take its place alongside the oak and baking spices, all lingering warmly, that sticky syrupy texture helping keep it all going and going and going…
OVERALL – Ain’t no way I’m rushing this pour…
It’s so good. Exactly what bourbon should taste like. Of course Knob Creek and Four Roses and many others can achieve that in their own ways. But there is some circle of perfection that a bourbon can find itself swirling about in, and this Wild Turkey 17 Year BiB is certainly there.
In this instance it’s to do with the incredible balance, the give and take, between the cherry, oak, and baking spices. That and the sticky, syrupy texture that helps everything to linger.
After taking down the formal tasting notes, I headed right out into my garden again. I wanted to take my time sipping this glass out there between the wood fence and those yellow flowers, so the season around me could blend with the bourbon in my glass.
Good call. Freed from analysis, I could just enjoy the bourbon and garden on their own terms. As I breathed in the bourbon’s aromas and sipped it, the dance between the cherry, oak, and baking spices continued to make its rounds. Soon I began to notice the complex grain of the wood in the fence running behind me. The sandy, uneven dirt making way for the stems of flowers to emerge. The flowers in bloom and decay. And then, with the final sip, a perfect duet of cherry and oak. And then, for one final surprise, notes of worn leather and hickory-smoked bacon fat emerged in the aromas of the empty glass.
I’ll be sad to see this bottle go. And yet, as good as it is, I know there are so many other good bourbons still to be had—some open on my shelf right now! My autumn will not be lack for spirited accompaniment, that’s for sure.
Cheers!
