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This is the third in a five part series of exploring Wild Turkey’s 12-year-old “Beyond Duplication” bourbon from the 1980’s to early 2000’s. If you want to read the other reviews I’ve posted, tap on this link and this link.
The bottle you see before you has affectionately been named “Split Label” by Wild Turkey purists. If you haven’t read my other reviews on this subject and are wondering why all of these weird names exist for Wild Turkey’s 12 year product, it’s because they didn’t really give it a name. The words “Beyond Duplication” appeared somewhere on every generation of the 12 Year, but my interpretation is that it’s just a marketing slogan.
But you can’t call a release that spanned 30 years of production the same name when the bourbon that’s in it has clearly evolved. So enthusiasts do what they always do and created nicknames for each label based on how they looked visually. Doing this allowed them to break down what made each generation different from the others and has allowed collectors to better establish a value for each label and bottling year.
Wild Turkey “Split Label”
Wild Turkey’s 12/101 “Split Label” generation spanned from 1993 to 1998. There are clearly two labels on the front of the bottle separated by a gap – hence the name. The bottom label tells us the age and proof. Inside of this generation, at least two different kinds of cardboard tubes were used between 93 and 98. The one you see before you is an earlier example found on the first year’s release (1993) and is a throwback to the “Cheesy Gold Foil” tube of the previous generation. Following years would see a colorful country-esque scene of a turkey in the foreground with a log cabin in the background.
Unlike the CGF version before it, there are not necessarily any special years to look out for. The general rule of thumb is “the older, the better” (and flippers have valued them as such). But don’t always take their word for it because there are some reviewers who found themselves preferring newer (96, 97, 98) bottlings to older bottlings (93, 94, 95) in blind tastings.
Within the Split Label timeline, there is no controversy regarding if sourced barrels like Old Boone made their way into a certain batch. It’s all widely assumed everything was made at Wild Turkey by Jimmy Russell using methods he perfected over decades. And just so we’re clear, those methods involve using a barrel entry proof of 107, cypress wood fermentation tanks, yeast that had been propagated in-house for decades and a 60″ Vendome Column Still to make it all on.
The one big thing to note is that the barrels used for Split Label were probably – on average – younger than they had been during the original Beyond Duplication and Cheesy Gold Foil years. This is due to Japan consuming as much as they could get and a slow rise in bourbon consumption in the US. There weren’t shortages just yet, but these trends would ultimately cause Beyond Duplication 12/101 to go on hiatus in 2012 due to inventory thinning out.
So how is Split Label? Let’s find out. Also to clarify before somebody calls it out, the bottle I’m reviewing today is from 1996, but the bottle in my pictures is from 1993. I sampled this neat in a glencairn.
Tasting Notes
Nose: Unlike previous versions of Wild Turkey 12/101 which were drowning in tannins of every kind, this Split Label bottle comes off sweeter and more “cherry-forward.” The sweets include rich caramel, honey and melted Dubai Chocolate (chocolate, pistachio cream and buttery phyllo dough). There is still a good amount of oak and some cedar to go along with it, giving it its age. If I walked into this blind, I’d put it at 14 or 15-years-old. Also, the longer I smell it, the more I can pick up on another fruit note: dried apricots.
Palate: The flavors that jump out initially tell me its still quite old. I find antiqued oak, camphor and oxidized black cherries. Speaking of fruit notes, I’m also finding a flavor reminiscent of Grenadine syrup. The rye spice is more apparent as I sip this and include notes of ginger root, anise, cinnamon and clove. Sweet flavors like caramel and butterscotch candies are exactly what I would expect with this older stock. One thing I kept underlining in my notebook indicate that the spice and tingly notes are obviously different from the thick, dark, soft notes of BD and CGF editions. It’s not a bad thing, it’s an observation.
Finish: Lingering notes of cinnamon spiced cherries, antiqued oak and tobacco leaf give some great age to the finish, allowing you to absorb all the flavors. The spice notes of allspice and clove give additional flavor while a hint of floral flavors slowly fade away after the very long finish.
Score: 8.7/10
With no additional context, this bourbon hits all the right notes and seems to have no flaws whatsoever. The tannins give this more age than the label suggests, the sweets keep everything balanced and the spices give us layers of complexity without imparting much heat. There’s even more fruit in this than I expected. Four wins in a row!
But my score was not nearly as high as my previous Beyond Duplication and Cheesy Gold Foil reviews. Why not? Because I did apply context here and Split Label is not as deep, rich or satisfying as those. To be clear, it’s fantastic on its own but in the context of the bourbon in its lineage, it’s the lesser of the three.
Final Thoughts
This will be a very simple conclusion. If you are just starting to get into dusties and have a bottle of Split Label in your collection, do not let this review convince you that its bad. The rating I gave it still puts it into the top 90th percentile of all bourbons I’ve ever tasted. If I come off like I’m saying it’s an inferior bottle, that’s not what I believe. This is a fantastic bottle that anyone should be overjoyed to own. But if you have the means and you’re looking for the absolute best of the best, then I would recommend dropping triple the money it would take to buy this bottle and get a Beyond Duplication or early Cheesy Gold Foil instead. Nothing else compares.
