In 1891, Thomas Ripy built the Old Hickory Distillery in Tyrone, Kentucky, near Lawrenceburg, on the former site of the Old Moore Distillery.[citation needed] After Prohibition, the Ripy family (Thomas had died in 1902) rebuilt the distillery and began to again produce bourbon.[1] The Ripys sold the bourbon produced at this distillery to various wholesalers who bottled bourbon under their own brands. Austin Nichols was one of these wholesalers.

The “Wild Turkey” brand is said to have arisen after an Austin Nichols executive, Thomas McCarthy, took some warehouse samples on a wild turkey hunting trip in 1940. The bourbon proved so popular among his friends they continued to ask him for “that wild turkey bourbon.”[2] Austin Nichols began to bottle Wild Turkey in 1942.[1]

The Ripys were bought out in 1949 by Robert and Alvin Gould.[3]