Credit: Early Morning Oats
Quinoa: The ancient Andean staple turned hipster superfood has navigated its way across the Atlantic and through the Australian Quarantine minefield to farms of Western Australia thanks to pseudocereal pioneers 3 Farmers.
Enter Jimmy McKeown & Tim Hosken of East Perth’s Whipper Snapper Distillery… Project Q is born; the ambitious lovechild of the Whipper Snapper & 3Farmers collaboration and Australia’s first quinoa spirit.
Whipper Snapper distilled Kununurra-grown corn with quinoa grains then aged the spirit in mini-barrels at high alcohol content for just under 6 months to achieve Project Q – the end goal of the project being an Australian regulations approved aged quinoa whiskey.
Nashville-based Corsair Artisan Distillery hold claim to the world’s first quinoa whiskey distilled from red and white quinoa grains and malted barley– it won silver in the 2011 New York International Spirits Competition and bronze in the 2012 American distillers institute awards.
With two known and accessible quinoa spirits on the market it seemed appropriate to taste them side by side – Whipper Snapper Project Q Vs. Corsair Quinoa Whiskey.
Let’s get the technicalities over first, Corsair is distilled with only 20% quinoa with the remainder malted barley – so technically a malt whiskey; Project Q is majority quinoa balanced with corn so we are certainly not comparing apples with apples here.
In addition to this, although both cask aged, Project Q matured just under 6 months in charred oak minis and Corsair in new charred oak 15 gallon barrels with no age statement, no doubt longer than 6 months though.
So how do they go head to head?
Corsair Quinoa Whiskey
Credit: Louisville Bourbon Buzz
Rich, deep orange-gold in colour with a nose of caramel, earthy grains and a hint of sweet-spiced vanilla. The palate is rustic and nutty, lightly noted with citrus and once again vanilla. It’s the nuttiness that makes this dram unique and must be the quinoa dimension coming through. The finish is long and well balanced leaving you with a taste resemblant of peanut butter and honey on fruit toast. Delicate but complex this is certainly worth seeking out.
Project Q
Credit: Whipper Snapper Distillery
Firstly, hats off to Whipper Snapper for their bottling and branding choices – masculine and minimalist. The heavy set square bottle with engraved logo is one to be cherished. The colour of the spirit is a striking deep amber that glistens with sophistication. The nose is scrumptious with an earthy quality and a distinct resemblance of toasted sugar-coated cashews, almonds and peanuts. The taste is bold, sweet honey almost agave-like with a peppery finish carried the entire way with a nut butter quality. It’s hard to describe what quinoa tastes like but you know that you are tasting it – its nutty, earthy, herbaceous and peppery at times. To me the finish is quite sharp although the nut butter flavour lingers with the pepper notes leaving you yearning for another sip.
Project Q is an overwhelming success – a couple of years ageing will do wonders to balance out the finish. The Whipper Snapper crew should be very proud and I am sure there will be a line out the door for their first whiskey release.
So when it comes down to it, quinoa is the clear winner here. The grains provide a nutty quality to these drams that is extremely difficult to describe but leaves you no choice but to ponder it over another glass.
Project Q was released in extremely limited quantities on 13 February and is available for purchase and tastings at the distillery. Corsair is distributed globally, including Australia and shouldn’t be too hard to get a hold of – do yourself a favour and have your own superfood whiskey battle.
The Boys of Whipper Snapper | Credit: Whipper Snapper