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All right, all right, all right… (nope, couldn’t help it). Matthew McConaughey, in the last few years: fresh off of filming Sing 2 and teasing the political world with a possible gubernatorial run in Texas, took a journey to Kentucky, where his father once allegedly played Wildcat Football. This exploration would bring him in 2016 to the Russell family, the legendary distillers, and purveyors of Wild Turkey Bourbon for over six decades. McConaughey unlike most Hollywood types wanted to do more than voiceovers and commercials, he wanted to steer creative decisions and get his hands dirty. That desire culminated in a collaboration with Wild Turkey’s master distillers to create his own variety of bourbon which in his dry Texas-style he refers to as, “The Juice”.
“Very early on, I brought up to them that I didn’t want to just be the hired hand that comes in and puts my face and voice,” he says. “That’s worth something, but I wanted to be a part of the creative.”
While most celebs sign onto a brand and blithely or numbly regurgitate whatever they’re told to, Matthew decided early on that he would take a different path. Intent to act more in the vein of a brand strategist, painstakingly learning about his product, its history and nuance, and of course the family that built it.
“The Juice” By Matthew McConaughey
Mr. McConaughey’s collaborative whiskey is the Wild Turkey Longbranch, “a bourbon crafted over a two-year collaboration with Wild Turkey master distiller Eddie Russell. The new offering takes the Kentucky classic and gives it a Texas twist by utilizing mesquite charcoal in its production.” according to Whiskey Advocate.
“I’ve secretly wanted to make a bourbon of my own,” McConaughey said. “So when we started on this, I thought, ‘What’s the Texas-Kentucky connection?’ I wanted to find something that was from the earth, that was quintessentially Texan, that could team up with Wild Turkey. When I hit on mesquite charcoal, I thought, ‘That’s our in.’”
The Whiskey is an 8-year-old bourbon that the 83-year-old Jimmy Russell ran through a two-step filtration process, as reported by Whiskyfest,
“[T]he first being to circulate it through traditional oak charcoal. “That softens the top notes and takes away some of the astringency,” Russell says. “It imparts a smoothness that Matthew liked.”
For the second step, Russell circulated it through mesquite charcoal. “That imparts a hint of smokiness, but not so much that it becomes [like] scotch,” he says. “There’s a character and a sweetness, but it’s still a straight bourbon.”
When he’s talking to his audience he likes to keep it grounded and upfront, “We’re peddling bourbon,” McConaughey says. “This is not overly serious. It should be fun…We don’t want to take you to class.” Forbes magazine reports that his method seems to be bearing fruit for the bourbon legends too. They wrote,
“According to data from Kantar, the bourbon brand outpaced competitors during the pandemic with 19.2% growth in volume compared to the broader whiskey category, which saw growth of 15%. Since McConaughey began working with Wild Turkey, its global portfolio has grown by 14.6%—something the company attributes to his campaigns.”
Expanding on his unorthodox marketing strategy, McConaughey explained to the Business publication, “We’re not trying to dust off and re-show you a product that you maybe didn’t know about,”
“We’re saying, with confidence, now go forward. Choose it if you want to. We’re not here to solicit you or to say, ‘Oh pick us.’ We’re not trying to be the most popular. That’s how the Russells got here. That’s how Wild Turkey got here.”
The actor/philosopher/philanthropist and UT-Austin Professor of practice ended a Wild Turkey promotional video in appropriate style telling the audience in his trademark drawl,
“If we’re for you… you’ll know.” Then he relates something Jimmy Russell told him.
“As Jimmy said ‘Hey, if this doesn’t work (laughs), we’re gonna be stuck with a whole hell of a lot of bourbon. And there’s worse things to be stuck with.”
Amen Matt.
https://twitter.com/McConaughey/status/1333481450536980480
