Thomas McCarthy
“Turkey Hunting Executive”
Thomas “Flash” McCarthy was the former Executive Vice President of Austin Nichols & Company, Inc., the maker of Wild Turkey Bourbon, and the third generation of his family to become an officer of the company. Thomas was born in New York City in 1921 and graduated from Choate Prep School in 1939. McCarthy served in the U. S. Marines, fighting in both Europe and the Pacific. In the Battle of Guadalcanal and the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II, he was an administrative officer. He reported directly to Douglas MacArthur during the Occupation of Japan after the Japanese surrendered.
When he got back to the States, Thomas, like his father and grandfather before him, went to work for Austin Nichols & Company, Inc. In 1940, McCarthy took a barrel of the Ripy Bourbon and two of his brothers on a hunting trip in North Carolina. On that trip, McCarthy hosted a Turkey Hunt and invited some of their distributors. McCarthy was entertaining the hunters throughout the hunt and stopped on four occasions to share some of his fine whiskey right from the barrel that day. As it came out of the barrel, it was smooth, spicy, and at 101 proof. Everyone on the trip raved about the taste, and less than two years later, the Wild Turkey 101 brand was introduced. It became popular amongst McCarthy’s friends, who referred to it as “That Wild Turkey Bourbon”. The name stuck, and the brand we know and love today was born at that moment.
Thomas met his wife Peggy during a ticker tape parade in New York after V-J Day, when World War II ended. They married in 1946 and had three children: daughter Lee McCarthy Huber, of Houston, Texas; Thomas C. McCarthy of Roslyn Harbor, New York; and son, Robert R. McCarthy of Enfield, Connecticut.
In 1971, McCarthy led the Austin Nichols & Company’s purchase of the JTS Brown & Sons Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, and renamed it the Wild Turkey Distillery. The following year, they produced the first series of Wild Turkey decanters. McCarthy and his family eventually took control of Austin Nichols and, in essence, owned the Wild Turkey brand. Austin Nichols & Company then sold off their grocery chain division to concentrate on the spirits business.
In 1980, spirit giant Pernod-Ricard, which ranks second only behind Diageo among the world’s liquor distributors, acquired Wild Turkey when it bought Austin Nichols & Company for $100 million. At the time of the acquisition, a condition of the sale was that McCarthy stayed on as an executive.
McCarthy was a member of the New York Athletic Club and was a voting member of the Heisman Trophy Committee. he was also an active member Heand Nassau Country Club. Thomas McCarthy died in his home in Manhasset, New York, in May 1997.
McCarthy was inducted posthumously into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame in 2004, in only its fourth class of inductees ever. McCarthy became only the 4th of 5 Wild Turkey family members to be inducted into the Bourbon Hall of Fame behind only Jimmy Russell and Earnest W. Ripy, Jr. “
Contributed by Colonel Craig Duncan, Columbia, Tennessee
