Visiting Wild Turkey: A Photo Essay

Last week I had the honor of attending the grand opening of the new Wild Turkey visitor center and celebrate Jimmy Russell’s 60 years with the distillery.

Visiting Wild Turkey: A Photo Essay
Jim Beam’s master distiller, Fred Noe, experiences Wild Turkey Diamond bourbon for the first time.

Last week I had the honor of attending the grand opening of the new Wild Turkey visitor center and celebrate Jimmy Russell’s 60 years with the distillery. In the spirit of full disclosure I should note that the fine folks at Wild Turkey not only invited me down (along with several other whiskey writers) for the event but also covered my travel and lodging for the event. We were given a personal tour of the distillery by both Jimmy and Eddie Russell followed by a tasting of the Wild Turkey line and a QA session with Jean Jacques Dubau, the new Managing Director of North America for Gruppo Campari.

After the tour we attend the grand opening celebration at the visitor center and mingled with some of Kentucky’s prominent political figures and the bourbon elite like Parker Beam and Fred Noe. I was even lucky enough to snap a photo of Fred Noe trying Wild Turkey Diamond for the first time with Jimmy.

It was a fantastic trip and the experience only served to strengthen my respect and admiration for the Wild Turkey brand. I’ll be posting some additional information from my trip over the next week or two but for now I wanted to share some of the photos I captured while at the distillery and grand opening celebration. I suggest pouring yourself a glass of Wild Turkey Rare Breed before viewing the following photos.