About this episode

Bruce Russell discusses his family's legacy in whiskey making and the current state of the bourbon market.

This week we're filming on location at Wild Turkey in Lawrenceburg, sitting in the old station house with Bruce Russell — third-generation whiskey maker and associate blender, grandson and son of the two living legends whose names hang over the place: Jimmy Russell, the longest-tenured master distiller of any spirit, and his son Eddie. Bruce was headed for a career in robotics until a summer giving distillery tours, and one quietly devastating afternoon when his introverted father walked his tour and told him he didn't know much of anything, redirected the whole course of his life. We get into what it means to carry a name like Russell, the freedom in being told you'll never be Jimmy or Eddie so you'd better be yourself, and the uncanny way personality and palate skip a generation. We discover Jimmy's handwritten 1950s notebooks and the by-hand, by-feel craft that's quietly vanishing, chase the elusive "Wild Turkey Funk" of vintage bourbon and ask whether it can ever be made again. We don't dodge the state of the market — the glut, the overproduction, the correction coming around 2029-30, and why the big houses ride out storms that sink smaller players. There's plenty for the…

People in this episode

Host: Tristan Stephenson

Guest: Bruce Russell

Topics covered

• whiskey making
• bourbon
• family legacy
• distillation
• market trends
• craftsmanship

Keywords

• whiskey
• bourbon
• Wild Turkey
• Jimmy Russell
• Eddie Russell
• craftsmanship
• market trends

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Wild Turkey

Books & works: Wild Turkey Funk

Places: Lawrenceburg

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