Another Huge Bourbon Heist

March 13, 2015 – It would have been a hell of a party, but unfortunately for Gilbert Curtsinger, someone tipped off the Franklin County Sheriff in Frankfort, Kentucky and he was arrested Wednesday evening.

When Deputies searched Curtsinger’s home they found five barrels of stolen Wild Turkey bourbon stashed behind a shed. Each barrel weighs 500 lbs so how the heist was carried out is still a mystery.  Besides the bourbon, which was missing from Wild Turkey’s distillery in Anderson County, police searched his home and found 25 guns, two silencers, a lot of cash and steroids.

The Wild Turkey barrels are worth $3,500 to $6,000 each but because the identifying labels had been spray painted over, Wild Turkey officials took samples to determine the exact worth.

This is the second big heist of valuable bourbon in the last 18 months.  In October 2013, 195 bottles of Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve Bourbon and 27 bottles of 13-year-old old Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye were stolen from the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort.  The goods were worth about $26,000 at the time.  Check out our story here.

Could there be a link?  Turns out Gilbert Curtsinger worked on the loading dock of Buffalo Trace Distillery and Sheriff Pat Melton said there is another suspect who works at Wild Turkey.  In an interview he said, “This investigation is going in several different directions. We’re following up on our leads as we speak.”

Curtsinger pleaded not guilty at his arraignment to charges of receiving stolen property over $10,000, as well as charges of possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.