Austin, Nichols & Co. were a grocery wholesaler in New York City who had started to focus primarily on wine and liquor sales by the 1930s. They had product distilled under contract for them, and came up with the Wild Turkey brand in 1940 to appeal to hunters and have a generally rustic appeal. The legend is that a higher-up would bring his best stuff turkey hunting with his buddies, and they started asking for “some of that wild turkey whiskey.”
The Wild Turkey brand was made from bourbon distilled at several plants, most likely Bernheim, Barton, Beam, and Schenley. But their biggest supplier was Ripy Bros. On July 1, 1972, the Ripy distillery in Lawrenceburg was purchased by Austin Nichols, with Jimmy Russell as master distiller, and henceforth all Wild Turkey was distilled there.
A true collectors must have!
