Surely one of the most interesting experiments by a small distillery recently is Frey Ranch’s Single Grain Series. Frey Ranch was established in 1854 as a farm in Northern Nevada and it continues to be a family-owned business today. They grow all the grains used in their whiskies and chose to highlight how a single grain would perform as a whiskey. Wheat and barley are fairly normal whiskey grains, though relatively rarely used as the only grain…but the most intriguing to me was the 100% Oat Whiskey.
There’s not much more to say about the facts of this whiskey…it comes only in a 375ml bottle, it is not a regular production item so you will have trouble finding it, it costs about $60, was aged for 5 years and 8 months, and is bottled at 110 proof (55% ABV).
Despite the relatively long aging, the color was just a medium amber hue. On the nose I got notes of oak and oats. Maybe it’s just because the thought is planted there by knowing it’s all oats, but I swear I could smell the grain in the distillate…almost a sweet oatmeal cookie note. Taking a sip, there was muted sweetness up front, but that oatmeal cookie flavor made it from the nose to the palate, along with a dark chocolate that just makes me think of my grandmother’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies…so much better than oatmeal raisin cookies! Midway through there was some cinnamon spiciness. Subsequent sips brought up an apple note in the beginning of the sip, too.
This is a delightful experiment and I wish they had better distribution on these. As it is, I had to order from a store in California, paying extra money for shipping it across the country. I will look out for this one to see if ever comes back to the Frey Ranch online store, too. It really is great and I can’t understand why so few distillers are experimenting with oats in the mashbill.
