![]() ![]() It remained an underground sensation until March of 2018 when Meta hosted the first-ever Turkey Dew popup event. When out-of-town bartenders would visit him at his Norfolk bar, crudo nudo, they started bringing along cans of Mountain Dew to make impromptu Turkey Dews. Meta owner Jeremy Johnson describes the Turkey Dew phenomenon as “an inside joke we took way too far.” Just how far? Seaburg commissioned the production of 101 Turkey Dew challenge coins which he would dispense to people in the know. ![]() (The artist reworked a 1950s Mountain Dew advertisement to read “Ya-hoo! Turkey Dew. What acted as an unofficial motto for the trip took on even more staying power when Seaburg, after a night drinking at Louisville’s Meta, decided to get a Turkey Dew tattoo. The Runamok group immediately made a Mountain Dew run and began dispensing the drinks as a “layback” (a shot poured directly into someone’s mouth), accompanied by a line McConaughey utters in his Texas stoner drawl: “That’s reeeeal nice.” One seemingly innocuous comment would set everything in motion: “Y’all need to try some wild turkey mixed with Mountain Dew. ![]() Later, Seaburg and some fellow attendees decided to look up the video on YouTube to see what other people were saying. In June 2017, Seaburg visited Kentucky to attend Camp Runamok, the annual “summer camp for bartenders.” At the Wild Turkey Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Seaburg attended the screening of the brand’s latest Matthew McConaughey commercial and was amused by the actor’s famously unique vernacular. “I don’t think whoever came up with Mountain Dew thought it would one day be a part of high-end mixology though,” adds Russell, “but I have to keep explaining… it’s not really an adult thing in Kentucky, it’s a 16-year-old thing.”Īnd, indeed, it would have probably continued to exist as a quotidian, un-ironic Kentucky call drink-hardly more interesting than a Rum and Coke-if not for Josh Seaburg, the Norfolk, Virginia, bartender who has become the face of Turkey Dew. Of course, “Mountain Dew” has long been Southern slang for moonshine in fact, Russell speculates that the soda was originally designed to help mask the poor quality of illegal booze. ![]()
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