Tasting notes

nose

roasted peanut and peanut shell, grape soda, honeysuckle and raw grain, with pipe tobacco and fresh oak

palate

heavy and oily; honey turning to molasses and demerara, with almond, clove, black licorice and ripe summer fruit

finish

banana and vanilla wafer meet salted peanut, then green peppercorn, leather and oak, ending on a dry, chewy spice that hangs on

Mash bill

100% two-row barley, unmalted. Frey Ranch grows the barley on its own farm in Fallon, Nevada, where the family has farmed since 1854, and mills it on site with a hammer mill. Whiskey made from unmalted barley alone is rare; the distillery made this one to show what that single grain becomes after years in oak.

Awards

• Double Gold — San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2025
• Best in Class — San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2025

Why it's craft

Frey Ranch grows every grain it distills on its family farm east of the Sierra Nevada, then mills, mashes, distills, ages and bottles on site; this release is the barley crop on its own. Colby and Ashley Frey founded the distillery in 2006 so that grain they had been trucking off for export would become something lasting, and the Frey family has farmed in Northern Nevada since 1854. The barrels age in a high-desert warehouse with no climate control. The ranch remains independent: a 2026 deal with Hotaling & Co. covers national sales and marketing, while the Freys keep ownership of all production.