Frey Family Works Five Years to Release Local Bourbon

by Susan Weikel --  After five years of hard work and dedication, Frey Distillery has met their goal of releasing locally produced bourbon. It is 51% or more corn, distilled to no more than 160 proof, didn’t go into the barrels at more than 125 proof, has aged in a new American oak barrel, and was made in the United States, thus qualifying as bourbon. On December 11, 2019, Frey’s bourbon was officially released at Frey Ranch and Distillery in Fallon, Nevada. This year’s release will be about 40,000 bottles. Since 1854, and for 5 generations, the Frey family has been involved in farming in Nevada. The knowledge shared over those generations shows in the quality of the farm ground around the distillery that produces distill quality grains (grains with a higher starch content.), not feed grains. Here is where the cooperative work with the neighboring dairy comes in to play as the manure from the dairy provides needed nutrients to the soil and helps produce those quality grains. Good stewardship of the land requires constant care of the soil with monitoring when and what amounts of fertilizer and other nutrients to apply so that top quality grains are the outcome. This grain is stored in the silos just outside of the distillery. It is weighed, milled, then sent into the hopper, and finally into the mash cooker upstairs. The tanks upstairs have an agitator, water, and heat.  As the mix heats, to a certain temperature depending on what grain is being used, the starches in the grains turn to sugar, now the yeast can process the sugar, and then ferment. The result is alcohol, heat, and CO2. This process takes 4 days with the distillery processing 7 days a week. The next path to making the bourbon is distilling in the continuous still, the still that produces the most quantity. This is where the alcohol is stripped out of the mash. This still runs continuously from 4 AM to 10 PM every day. The mash goes up the still, plates heat up using steam. As it heats up, the alcohol comes off as a vapor, alcohol boils at 172 degrees. This still is very fast, 5,000 gallons of mash in about 18-20 hours; yet, the downside to a continuous still is that the liquid isn’t as clean. In all alcohol, there is a small number of congeners, undesired liquid.  With this still, there is no way to remove these congeners. Almost all major whiskey brands use only continuous stills and choose to just strip the alcohol. Many distilleries do not process through a second pot installation because it slows them down. All of those toxins are spread out into the whole batch over many bottles.  “There’s not enough in the bottle to kill you, but it definitely contributes to how you feel the next day when you wake up.”  Russell Wedlake, the V. P. of Operations, smiles as he shares that bit of information. After the alcohol is distilled off, the ‘spent grain’, mash by-product with no alcohol in it, is then pumped underground outside into a separator where the solids and liquids are separated. And, the wheel of stewardship continues with the solids being sent to the neighboring dairy as the ‘spent’ grain still has a food value for livestock. Some of the leftover liquid flows into the irrigation system and returns to the fields to help balance the PH in the soil. This process is always practicing good stewardship of the land. After running through the continuous still, the liquid that goes into the second still, the pot still, is approximately 45% alcohol and will be redistilled. Here all of the alcohol is heated to the same temperature at the same time. The congeners are a form of liquid that have a lower boiling point than alcohol; so as the liquid heats up, the first vapor to come off is the congeners, or the heads. The liquor is then sent to the receiver. The receiver has 3 compartments, the heads tank, the hearts tank, and the tails tank.  They run the first 25-35 gallons off the still into the heads tank (the congener tank), and once that is done, a cut is made, a change of the valve, and now the liquor runs into the hearts tank. The heart of the run is the best alcohol produced and this is what is used to produce all of the Frey liquors. They monitor what is coming through and the last cut is made. The last cut goes to the tails tank. This liquor tends to be a bit oily and off flavored.  The pot still is very slow, but this is where the quality of the liquor comes into play. The pot still holds about 600 gal. and takes about 8 hours to process, and then it has to be emptied and cleaned out before another batch can be distilled. With the use of both stills, Frey Distillery is producing both a large quantity and a quality bourbon. Water is pumped underground from the pond and used to cool all the equipment. Then the water returns to the pond. This cycling of the water is very efficient and not expensive to run. This is the method that Frey Distillery uses instead of antifreeze chillers. Many of the distilleries across the country uses expensive antifreeze chillers. Colby Frey explains, “We priced one out and it would be over $200,000 a year just to run the electricity to cool it. Now we run a couple thousand dollars a year of electricity and use cold water reservoir coming from the pond and it cools it just as good.”  It’s a repeating cycle of pumping the water, cooling, and returning to the reservoir. Once the alcohol is in the condenser, it cools down and becomes a liquid. Once the distilling is complete, the barrels must be stored. The first storage-warehouse built holds 1450 barrels, stacked 7 high in the traditional style. The new warehouse can hold 8,500 barrels that are on pallets, upright, and stacked. There is no control of the temperature in either of the warehouses. They want it to get very cold in the winter and hot in the summers. The temperature variations change the density of the alcohol; the alcohol swells and contracts pushing the alcohol into the oak and pulling it back out. As it moves in the barrel, the liquor draws the brown color of the whiskey from the barrel. Tannins also come from the barrel and give texture to the whiskey. The barrels used by the distillery are new, 53-gallon oak barrels with a 4 char, the heads a 3 char. Carbon is a natural filter and helps mellow the whiskey, so it is important that the inside of the barrel has the correct amount of char. Most important is what is called the maillard reaction (a chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars that gives browned food its distinctive flavor). “When you expose anything with sugar in it to high temperatures, it complexes the flavor profile of the sugar. So trees are wood and have natural sugars in them.  American oak is what we use and when you expose American oak to high temperatures and the sugars get caramelized, the flavor profiles you get are vanilla, caramel, maple, tobacco. A lot of the flavors you taste in whiskey,” Russell explains. In the warehouse, the humidity is controlled and kept around 70% humidity. This controls the amount of ‘angel share’ loss, the loss that evaporates out of the barrel. If the climate is dry, water and alcohol will evaporate out of the barrel. If it is kept humid in the warehouses, water can’t leave the barrel because of the water in the air. Alcohol still leaves the barrel. Keeping the water in the barrel keeps the flavor in the barrel and keeps the proof from going up. If the proof raises too much, then water has to be added back in and that defeats all the work done to have a pure product. When the Freys first started, they only ran the distillery in the winter and farmed in the summer. The first year of distilling produced around 200 barrels. (Now 60 barrels a week are produced.)  Colby and Russell have the job of tasting each of the barrels and deciding which ones to blend and what to return to storage.  For the first release, 60 barrels were blended together to create the best flavor and texture. If a barrel seemed to be really good, over the top, it was set aside as a ‘honey’ barrel. Those barrels will be released a bit down the road as single barrel releases or extended aging. Some barrels will be kept for stores, bars, or restaurants that want their own unique barrel. 3 or 4 barrels will be pulled out, interested parties will come and do a tasting to pick out what they want. Then the barrel will be bottled with the Frey label and the bottles will also have a sticker that says something like ‘picked and bottled for _____’. A percentage of barrels each year are put back into storage and re-tasted on a yearly basis. Bourbon is delicate and that causes an intense monitoring as the liquor ages in the barrels so that the oak does not cover up the taste but enhances it. “Bourbon should be soft and delicate,” Russell says. Many of the brands on the market today do not distill their own liquor. They purchase the liquor and put their label on the bottles. That is something you will not find happening with Frey liquors. “None of the ingredients in this bottle have ever left our possession until you take them home. We planted the seeds, grew the grains, harvested them, stored them, milled them, mashed them, fermented them, distilled them, aged them, bottled them. Everything right here. Total control over the entire process,” Colby proudly says.       Support local, independent news – contribute to The Fallon Post, your non-profit (501c3) online news source for all things Fallon. Never miss the local news -- read more on The Fallon Post home page.