Wild Turkey 101

You can tell a lot about a person by what's in their glass. Sometimes it says, I appreciate true craftsmanship. And sometimes it says, I will definitely try to explain cryptocurrency to you at this party. I'm Tim Fulton, and this is Character Proof.

Every episode we pour a different whiskey, break down the actual tasting notes, and then vividly imagine the exact type of person who drinks it on purpose. So grab a glass, pull up a chair, and get ready for some tasting notes, and a whole lot of character flaws.

Let's get pouring. 101 proof, and it leads with exactly what it is. Big caramel and vanilla, toasted oak, a swell of baking spice, that signature high rye kick of black pepper and cinnamon riding over the sweetness.

The nose is generous, brown sugar, a little orange peel, a funky old school graininess they've never sanded off, because sanding it off was never the point. The palate is full and muscular, toffee, vanilla, rye spice, char, a touch of honey holding the middle together, and the finish goes long and warm with pepper and oak, an actual finish,

a finish with a forwarding address. This is one of the last great yardstick bourbons, over-proofed for the price, under-marketed for the quality, made more or less the same way since men wore hats to work. It costs about $25.

It has never once been allocated. It will be on the shelf when you get there. And every one of those sentences is why Gus loves it. Because Gus does not merely drink this bourbon, Gus votes for it.

Gus is 61, a retired union electrician, and Gus has been drinking this same bottle since 1987, through every hype cycle this industry has produced. The way a lighthouse has watched every storm. Gus has seen them come and go, the single barrel boom, the finished in somebody else's cask

boom, the barrel-proof arms race, the year everyone discovered rye, the year everyone discovered they'd over-discovered rye. Through all of it, Gus's order has not changed, his opinion of your order has not softened, and his receipts, this is the terrifying part, are immaculate.

Say the word allocation near Gus, and something happens to his face that meteorologists would classify as a pressure system. Because Gus has takes, and unlike everyone else we've covered, Gus's takes have never once been wrong on the money.

Craig's Six Bottle Shrine, Gus calls it a savings account that evaporates. The secondary market? Grown men trading baseball cards you can drink. Grayson Wexley and his sealed pappy?

Gus met a man like that at a Legion Hall once and still refers to the encounter the way other people refer to witnessing a crime. Gus watched a 30-year-old at the liquor store pay $400 over sticker for a store pick, and had to go sit in his truck.

He describes tasting rooms as cover charges for lying, influencers as the weathermen of liquor, and any bourbon over $60 as the same corn with better lawyers. You will notice none of these statements is entirely false. This is Gus's power.

This has always been Gus's power. The nephew tried to get him on the internet once, showed him a video of a man in a tasting room nosing a glass and saying, wet cardboard, but in a good way, and Gus watched the whole thing in silence, handed the phone back, and said, that fella has never fixed anything.

It remains the single most complete review of the modern whiskey industry ever recorded, and it was free. But spend enough evenings on that porch, and it's a porch, obviously it's a porch, with a dog whose name is a tool or a president, and you'll notice something underneath the

grievance, something Gus would deny under oath. Gus is heartbroken. He loved this thing before it was content. Even was the affordable cathedral of Gus's whole class of men.

You worked your shift, you poured two fingers of something honest, and the distance between you and a rich man in that one glass was zero. Then the world found it, priced the cathedral like a nightclub, and started charging at the door.

When Gus says, it's just corn, water, and time, he is not being reductive. He is defending the last thing in his life whose value he can still verify with his own mouth. And here's the affectionate part, because there's always one, and for once it barely

needs the turn. Gus is right. That's the whole thing. After eight episodes of men performing taste, Gus is what taste looks like when it stops

performing. A fixed reference point, a control group of one, the yardstick everybody on this show should be measured against, and would fail. The one small tragedy we're obligated to report is that the fortress has a cost.

Gus has, on principle, refused roughly 40 free pours of genuinely interesting whiskey on the grounds that liking new things is how they get you. Gus, they cannot get you. You are un-gettable.

You've been un-gettable since 1987. So take the free pour next time, purely for reconnaissance, and then go home to the 101, which will still be $25, still on the shelf, still exactly where the lighthouse stands.

Somebody in this economy has to hold the line. It was always going to be the electrician. Well the glass is empty, and the verdict is officially in. That's going to do it for this episode of Character Proof.

If you enjoyed the show, please hit subscribe, leave us a five star review, and share it with that one friend whose whiskey shelf costs more than their car. You know exactly who I'm talking about. Want us to put your go-to bottle to the test?

Drop your favorite pour in the reviews, or hit us up on socials, and we might just profile you next. Until next time, drink responsibly, pour generously, and always check your character flaws. Cheers.