Table Of Contents
The Details
| Rating | 93 |
| Style | Whiskey |
| Produced In |
Nevada United States |
| ABV | 67.24% |
| Availability | Limited |
| Price | $114.00 |
| Reviewed By | |
| Review Updated | 2024-06-03 |
Frey Ranch Single Barrel 100 Percent Wheat Whiskey Review
Nevada’s Frey Ranch Distillery is a true “grain to glass” operation. In addition to growing its own grains, the operation also distills, ages, and bottles everything on site. The distillery has thus controlled each and every aspect of production since it began distilling a decade ago. That insistence on staying local has led to some interesting experiments, including the distillery sourcing its own “peat” from biograded plant matter on the farm.
Recently, Frey Ranch has been leaning into single grain expressions, notably single malt. The latest foray into single grain expressions is wheat whiskey, in this case a distillate made with 100 percent soft white winter wheat. Frey Ranch has bottled a limited run of single barrel wheat whiskey at cask strength, ranging from 116.8 proof to around 134.4 proof. All barrels in the release were aged between six years and two months to seven years and eight months.
Today, we’re reviewing a bottle clocking in at 67.24 percent ABV (or 134.48 proof), putting it right at the upper end of this cask strength line. Let’s see how it tastes!
Frey Ranch Single Barrel 100 Percent Wheat Whiskey: Stats and Availability
Frey Ranch’s Single Barrel Wheat Whiskey is bottled at cask strength and carries a suggested retail price of $114. It’s available through Frey Ranch’s website in a limited quantity. While Frey Ranch’s core lineup has fairly widespread distribution across the United States, this and other single barrel bottlings are often most readily available online.
According to the distillery, this single barrel release is a limited run of wheat whiskey, though I suspect we’ll see more in years down the road.
Frey Ranch Single Barrel 100 Percent Wheat Whiskey Review
As with all of VinePair’s whiskey reviews, this was tasted in a Glencairn glass and rested for at least five minutes.
Nose
The nose practically explodes with sweetness in several forms: dark caramel, sweetened condensed milk, and spiced dark coca.
After a little more time in the glass, those various sweet aromas meld into one predominant, decadent note: intensely spiced apple butter, the fruit cooked down with cloves and cinnamon to form a dark paste, and a touch of vinegar added to bring a slightly acidic element to the richness.
That sweetness is underpinned in all phases by intense, leathery baking spice and fatty brown butter. (I’m already wondering if that fattiness will carry over to the palate.) Medicinal and dark cherry notes also come out to play, never quite as intense but increasingly noticeable as the nose acclimates to that spiced apple butter.
I’ve often scratched my head to describe the potent spiciness wheat can bring to a whiskey on the nose, largely in the context of wheated bourbons. It’s a mix of those cherry scents and richly spiced fruit preserves, sometimes unbalanced in proportion but nearly always both accounted for. This 100 percent wheat whiskey from Frey Ranch takes those characteristics and dials them up to 11. So far, it’s fantastic.
Taste
We ended up with a bottle on the very high end of this release’s proof spectrum, and the first sip dashes out of the gate with ethanol heat. Fortunately, it immediately calms down on the second sip, and I can start sussing out flavors within that 134.48 proof.
Malted milk balls pair with hard candy caramel for sweet elements that stick heavily on the tongue. A few more seconds in, and that coating sweetness transitions to cream cheese frosting and red velvet cake; it’s a decadent, cakey fastball, right down the middle.
Fortunately, that intense sweetness is balanced ever so slightly by tart and fruity flavors in the form of black cherry, cranberry sauce, and blood orange. The fruit builds along the midpalate, and it’s an effective handoff on a tasting experience that’s already leaning toward cloying for some drinkers.
That spice isn’t completely absent here, but it tends to accumulate on the sides of the tongue and upper palate instead of the tongue itself. Black tea with honey brings up the end of the midpalate and lingers along the central line of the tongue from back to front.
A few drops of water — highly recommended — bring out more cherry and citrus throughout the tasting experience while tempering the sweetness slightly.
Finish
The finish leads with yet another pop of vanilla frosting sweetness. After that comes spice, cinnamon, and cloves as with the nose. A medium-long finish dissipates with tannic wood, leather, and tobacco filling the gaps left behind.
Frey Ranch Single Barrel 100 Percent Wheat Whiskey Rating
93/100
Recap
Frey Ranch’s latest limited expression exemplifies some of wheat whiskey’s unique characteristics — and it does so with no holds barred. This is a powerful (and powerfully sweet) pour, one that wheat fans will probably love and those new to the category will want to tread slowly into with a water dropper on hand.
Though the 100 percent wheat whiskey lacks some balance on the palate — this far on the sweet side of the American whiskey spectrum — it also showcases both depth and staying power.
Bloggers and nerdier drinkers have been keeping close eyes on Frey Ranch’s continued releases. This expression backs up the idea that all fans of craft whiskey would be wise to do the same.
*Image retrieved from Frey Ranch
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