For the Russell family, bourbon has always been more than a business. It’s a legacy built on tradition and a bond that spans three generations at Wild Turkey.

It began in 1954 with Jimmy Russell’s unwavering belief in doing things “the right way,” a mantra that he has repeated throughout his 71 years working at the distillery. The legacy was carried forward by his son, Eddie, who began working with Jimmy in 1981 and forged his own path over his nearly 45-year career. Today, it continues with Bruce, who found his calling not just in whiskey, but in working alongside his father and grandfather.

In 2023, Bruce earned the title of associate master blender. That same year, the distillery released Wild Turkey Generations, the first bottle to carry the signatures of all three whiskey makers in the Russell family. This fall, the second bottle to feature his name, Master’s Keep Beacon, will debut. Unlike its predecessor, Beacon bears only the signatures of Eddie and Bruce, representing the distillery’s present and future.

The paths that led Eddie and Bruce to this moment couldn’t have been more different. Eddie learned the trade directly from his father, Jimmy, a man known for his stubbornness—“Do it the right way, or don’t do it at all," he was known to say. “I had to live it," Eddie recalls. "It was more, ‘Learn it on your own; get in there and get your hands dirty; this is how it’s done, don’t change it.' It was me working as a union employee, working in the distillery, working as a supervisor, taking over the maturation, and then running basically the whole plant.”

Bruce, meanwhile, paid his dues as a tour guide at the distillery and brand ambassador for Wild Turkey and Russell’s Reserve in Texas. Ultimately, he moved back to Kentucky, and his father Eddie showed him the ropes. “Ever since I started, Dad’s led me through, taught me what he knows, and has let me try my own things,” says Bruce. “He has been not only generous with his time, but open to my thoughts and what I want to see.”

Jimmy’s approach to Bruce’s education was a bit different, but it was one that showed the familial bonds that stretch over three generations. “When Bruce first came in, Jimmy gave him a book with all his handwritten notes,” says Eddie. “I had been there 30 years and never seen that book.”

The mentorship has gone both ways. Eddie credits Bruce with bringing a natural aptitude and fresh perspective that resonates with a new generation of bourbon and cocktail enthusiasts. “I realized from around the first time I was training [Bruce] how good his palate was,” he says. “It definitely has to be something that’s passed down, because without really any teaching, he understood flavors and used such great words to describe things. I’ve learned a lot from him on that end.”

Bruce is quick to return the compliment. “To be honest, I probably wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing without Dad,” he says. “I mean, quite literally, what really drew me in the beginning wasn’t the whiskey part. It was the chance to get to work with Dad and Jimmy.”

Master’s Keep

Few bottles capture the Russells’ father-and-son relationship better than the new 118-proof Master’s Keep Beacon, the final entry in Eddie’s annual series. Wild Turkey's Master’s Keep series began in 2015 as a way for Eddie to craft high-end whiskeys that were different from the core products that Jimmy created. The collection ranged from cask-finished bourbons like Voyage, which spent time in rum barrels, to well-aged ryes like Triumph, to the fan favorite 17-year-old bottled-in-bond bourbon.

Although Eddie and Bruce have long collaborated on Wild Turkey’s limited-edition whiskeys, as mentioned before Beacon is the first bottle to carry their signatures and not Jimmy’s. More than any of their previous projects, it was a shared effort from start to finish. “This was really working closely with Bruce, sitting in the lab, taking his whiskey, my whiskey, figuring out how much of each needed to go in there, what flavors we liked, what we were looking for,” says Eddie. “I think it turned out almost as good as anything we’ve done.”

Beacon is a blend of two bourbons, aged 10 and 16 years, that were chosen to reflect defining chapters in both men’s stories. Eddie contributed the 16-year-old, which was distilled between 2007 and 2008. It was drawn from some of the last barrels at the original Wild Turkey site where he learned the craft from Jimmy before the distillery’s 2011 expansion.

Bruce selected a 10-year-old bourbon from 2015, distilled manually with Jimmy after fully committing to the family business. “Jimmy kind of wanted me to prove myself to him, so he took me aside and we did everything from start to finish,” Bruce recalls. “We did the grain intake that week, we watched over the cooking and the fermentations, and did it all by sight and smell and sound, not just through the automated system.”

As the last bottle in the series, Beacon feels like a passing of the torch from Eddie to Bruce. “It’s really exciting for me,” says Bruce. “Not only to get to do this with Dad, since this product has meant so much to him, but to get to put out what’s probably the only liquid I’ll ever distill myself in my career.”

Though Master’s Keep is ending, Bruce hints at a new annual series of limited-edition whiskeys on the horizon—this time with him at the helm. The details remain under wraps, but fans of Wild Turkey can expect plenty to look forward to. “Dad has lobbed an underhand softball to me and I have the biggest bat in the world to swing, because the distillery has done such a good job,” Bruce says. “Thanks to Dad and the team, we have quite a bit of good old liquid we’re going to get to play with in the next five years.”

The future of Wild Turkey is in good hands.