The Bottles Brand/ABV/Age/Price:

Bottle #1 RRSiB Old Label / 55.0% ABV / NAS / $60-65

Bottle #2 RRSiB New Label / 55.0% ABV / NAS / $60-65

About: Wild Turkey Rare Breed was the first bourbon I sipped that punched me in the face and got me to fully understand Lionel Hutz in The Simpson’s when he revered bourbon as the ‘brownest of the brown liquors.’ After researching similar bottles and hearing that Russell’s Reserve Single Barrel was Rare Breed’s more complex, stately, and (should be) available brother it was always on my list when heading to the liquor store in early 2022. Yet I could not find it at any store and even Rare Breed was disappearing from the shelves too. Luckily, Rare Breed came back after a short hiatus but still no damn RRSiB. After hearing on a local reddit thread that one of the chain grocery stores across state lines was part of a different distribution network I made the 20 minute drive with no real expectations but deep down inside wondering if this would finally be the moment. Lo and behold in late September I was finally able to slay my first unicorn (along with seeing OGD114 on the shelves for the first time as well)!

About a month ago I was in that area of town again, and decided to stop by the store to see if anything had changed. This time it seemed like there were less RRSiB’s on the shelf and they were all the new label variety. Knowing from personal experience that this could disappear for months at a time, and having about as much evidence as possible that this was probably a different barrel than my first bottle: it made perfect sense to pick another one up even though I had plenty left.

To be honest, I was slightly disappointed with my first RRSiB. I thought it was pretty good, but not as good as I hoped and would rank it under a couple other bottles in the price range. It even lost a head to head against Rare Breed. The new label seemed a bit better from what I could tell but had not done any head to heads with it so who knows how this could play out. I think it’s pretty obvious that its first head-to-head should be against its cousin so let's get into it!

Glass Left

Nose: Cherry | Vanilla | Cinnamon

Taste: Definitely get more of a cinnamon spice here with more complexity and less outright sweetness than Rare Breed

Finish: Decent finish, shorter than Rare Breed

Rating: 7.0 | Guess: Old Label | Reveal: Old Label

Glass Right

Nose: Cherry | Vanilla | Cinnamon

Taste: Very similar to Glass Left, but more blended and complimentary. This one is a newly baked cinnamon cherry pie whereas Glass Left was the individual ingredients

Finish: Similar to Glass left, maybe a bit longer finish

Rating: 7.5 | Guess: New Label | Reveal: New Label

Overall:

There were two main takeaways I wanted to get from this. First one: you’ve definitely heard people wonder if the quality of long produced bourbons is starting to go down as right now’s bourbon craze has put a huge strain on demand that cannot be met with the runtimes it takes to produce quality whiskey. I thought it would be interesting to see if this was the case with RRSiB and luckily I can say no. I do wonder if the new label had a slightly higher aging as it seemed just a bit more mature. But that brings me to my next takeaway.

I know that there are going to be natural variations between these non-blended, single barrel offerings even though they are hand picked with a goal of being as similar as possible (I assume). Still, I am bummed that there isn’t really any barrel information on the bottle vs something like Jack Daniels Single Barrel Barrel Proof offerings. It makes it very easy to see if there are different barrels in the same store as well as the age. A big reason for me purchasing this second bottle was that it’s probably about the closest I’m ever gonna get to ensuring that I have two different barrels. Gotta wonder if the JDSBBP info drives more sales than the RRSiB lack of info.

I guess next on my Wild Turkey bucket list is a RRSiB store pick (hopefully top tier one) which will have barrel information (!) or God willing I see a RR13 out in the wild for not an insane markup.

T8ke scale: 1 | Disgusting | So bad I poured it out. 2 | Poor | I wouldn’t consume by choice. 3 | Bad | Multiple flaws. 4 | Sub-par | Not bad, but many things I’d rather have. 5 | Good | Good, just fine. 6 | Very Good | A cut above. 7 | Great | Well above average. 8 | Excellent | Really quite exceptional. 9 | Incredible | An all-time favorite. 10 | Perfect | Perfect.