Bruce Russell
Bruce Russell: Third Generation of a Legacy
Bruce Russell was born in 1989 in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Through the years, Bruce would get the opportunity to learn from his dad and grandfather, both legends in the bourbon business. His first lesson came along when Bruce was about eight or nine years old. Bruce smelled the contents of his dad’s glass as Eddie spoke about the family business. The reverence his father held for bourbon was an indicator to Bruce just how important this liquid was to his heritage. Bruce’s family was just like any other small-town southern family, except for all the whiskey everywhere. Bruce spent his teen years at the distillery when bourbon wasn’t as popular as it is today, while his father and grandfather were content with allowing Bruce to choose his own path.
Bruce wanted to go to school and be an engineer. However, being in the bloodline of one of bourbon’s legacy names, it only makes sense to follow in the footsteps of your dad and grandfather, so ultimately, that’s exactly what Bruce decided to do. While attending the University of Kentucky in 2010, he was approached by his father about taking a job as a tour guide at Wild Turkey. At the age of 21 in 2010, Bruce took that position for $10 an hour, but what he began would be priceless to his future.
Since joining the company, Bruce has taken the time to learn and to understand the traditions associated with bourbon, all while throwing in some ideas of his own tastes and curiosity. Bruce would be the first to tell you that Jimmy does everything the old-fashioned way and loves for everything to be tactile: sight, smell, taste, and feel. On the other hand, his dad Eddie loves to experiment, which has yielded some award-winning bourbons like Decades in 2016, which is part of the Top Shelf line in the Master’s Keep Collection. Eddie also scored big in 1998 with the Diamond Anniversary Reserve, which commemorated Jimmy’s tenure at Wild Turkey. In doing so, Bruce has embraced these important lessons that he has learned from Eddie and Jimmy to comprehend the true meaning of the bourbon experience of family, friends, and visitors to Wild Turkey.
Almost 15 years later, Bruce has discovered that each Russell has shared their own unique tastes and ideas that have greatly strengthened the product line of Wild Turkey. While experiencing this, he has been able to blend in his concepts to further enhance the whiskey, especially since Bruce is considered the Russell family’s “rye guy.” In late 2023, Wild Turkey released the first product that honors the collaboration of all three generations of the Russell family, called Generations. The bottle is the first to have the signatures of Jimmy, Eddie, and Bruce. Says Bruce,“I take a lot of pride in what my family does. My personality is pretty close to Jimmy’s, and my ideas about whiskey are similar to Dad’s, so it works out pretty well.”
Today, Bruce serves as a Brand Ambassador for Wild Turkey, travelling the world promoting the brand he loves. He is based in Austin, Texas, but probably spends more time in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Although working with his dad and grandfather allows Russell to continue to enhance the bourbon and rye produced at Wild Turkey, he says he wants his legacy to be one of a guy who was a down-to-earth, honest person who promoted the brand Wild Turkey, what it represents, its legacy, taste, and its heritage.
