Whipper Snapper Wheatbelt Series Single Malt

Nose: Fruit (apple peel), cereal (fresh wort), unctious notes (oily barley? fortified wine?) and crisp oak barrel. There’s a wintergreen note as well. Overall it’s a fresh, lifted nose but its obviously young. Palate: Soft, creamy arrival that seethes with barley oils. It’s like a pot-still Irish whiskey taken to almost absurd levels. It quickly develops a lot of awkward spice notes (caraway, nutmeg, fennel) and a good deal of simple heat with an undertone of ethanol. The texture is heavy and oily but lacks refinement. Finish: Medium. Gristy cereal with wood and spice notes. I just received three Whipper Snapper samples and decided to examine this single malt first, as in his recent review of the same three whiskies @DrRHCMadden rated this lowest. This malt shows facets that are more typical of a rye whisky, in fact if I had tasted this blind its braying chorus of bready spices and minty wintergreen would have led me to think it was a barley-heavy rye rather than a single malt. The nose is warming and seductive and although there is obvious evidence of youth its crisp freshness makes it work. However the palate was where it really let me down. It's here that its juvenile character is on full display, and it’s a display of brash flavours that have not even started to meld into anything approaching maturity. This is apparently four years old and if that’s so it needs several more years in a refill bourbon cask in a very stable environment to calm it down. Right now it’s a squalling infant, and honestly I could not finish the tasting sample. It’s also wildly overpriced. Comparing this to any Scottish single malt in the same price bracket would be an exercise in embarrassment. Tasted from a 30ml sample. “Adequate” : 73/100 (2.25 stars)

The third in Whipper Snappers Wheat Belt series this is the single malt. Whipper Snapper was founded in 2013 and has been consistently turning out their upshot, bourbon-esque corn whisky along with various smaller batches. All perfectly reasonable. Now though, they bring their unique Upshot character to barley and a single malt. Here, Whipper Snapper have sourced a barley variety known as “Spartacus” from the Nyoongar boodja Wheatbelt region, malted it in the warehouse on the edge of the Perth CBD, and aged the whisky for four years in ex-Upshot barrels (themselves virgin American oak). I am informed that WS use open-top fermentation to allow for warmer fermentation and subsequently a more fruit-forward character and ester depth are pulled from the barley. The WS hybrid column still is configured to run four plates, cutting hearts at 30% ABV for only the best hearts spirit and a savoury, fruity, oily single malt distillate at an overall average ABV of 63%. N: Strong gristy barley with plenty of brown sugar and dark honey. Some rough ethanol notes are found around the edges and I feel they get in the way of some brighter florals and orchard profiles. P: Slightly oily but soft palate. Certainly barely forward with caramels and vanilla building on the barely sugar main profile. Light pear juice, cinnamon and nutmeg spices. F: Short. Initially slightly leathery or darkly woody, but quickly fading out through tannic spice and toffee creaminess. I’m surprised, again. Where the Rye from the wheatbelt series surprised me for being unexpectedly excellent, this single malt has surprised me for being (1) perfectly fine as a new to the scene single malt, and (2) perfectly forgettable. For all the importance of terroir and authenticity of locally grown grain that the wheatbelt series espouses, this whisky in my mind lacks a defining character of its own. I am all for supporting local but at AUD$150 this is competing with the likes of Monkey Shoulder at $63, Glenfiddich 12 at $75, or even The Classic Laddie or Highlighd Park 10 at <$100. There is an endless list of entry level single malts with their own strength of characters that makes it hard to justify this admirable attempt from Whipper Snapper when it sits at such a high price point. Distiller whisky taste #283 [Pictured here with a chunk of local Tamala Limestone. This rock makes up most of the western Australian coastline. The Tamala Limestone is in-fact a sandstone and consisting of wind-blown shell fragments and quartz which accumulated as coastal sand dunes during the middle and late Pleistocene and early Holocene eras (~20,000-10,000 years ago). As a result of a process of sedimentation and water percolating through the shelly sands, the mixture later lithified when the lime content dissolved to cement the grains together. A young rock from Perth seems fitting for this new comer single malt]. Whipper Snapper Running Scores Crazy Uncle Moonshine: 3/5 Crazy Uncle Barrel Aged Moonshine: 3.25/5 Upshot: 3.5/5 Upshot Cask Strength: 3.5/5 Upshot Red Corn: 3.25/5 Project Q: 3.25 Wheat Belt Series Wheat: 3.75/5 Wheat Belt Series Rye: 4.25/5 Wheat Belt Series Single Malt: 2.75/5