Wagin Woolorama celebrates 50th anniversary with Whipper Snapper distillery

For the 30th year in 2002, a red wine carried a Woolorama label and last year, to mark 50 years, a special whiskey was due to be released by Whipper Snapper Distillery for the celebrations.

The East Perth-based distillery went ahead and bottled an unreleased run of 200 bottles from a new barrel, aged especially for the event and planned to donate $10 from every bottle to charity.

Woolorama was cancelled but Whipper Snapper went ahead launched its limited edition Woolorama blend whiskey online with a sell-out result raising $2000 for the Narrogin community that suffered a devastating bushfire in February 2022.

The fire burnt through 19,000 hectares, destroying bushland, stock and fencing and touched the heart of co-founder, head distiller and former Narrogin boy Jimmy McKeown.

They money went directly to local farmers through the not-for-profit charity BlazeAid.

The limited run was marketed as a Woolorama Upshot blend and made from proudly sourced 100 percent Western Australian grain using a blend of 80pc corn, 10pc malted barley and 10pc wheat.

If you missed out on the fundraising whiskey, Whipper Snapper will be at Woolorama in the Home & Lifestyle Pavilion where you can find the equivalent drop under the Upshot label.

Whipper Snapper will have its expanding range of whiskey products and the stories of how the passion, dedication and hard work they have put into the distillery is making a good news story for WA grain producers.

Each bottle is individually signed and dated by the head distiller and none has more prestige than the First Cask Heritage Upshot, limited edition collectors whiskey that comes with a certificate of authenticity and retails for $880 a bottle.

As Perth's first Whiskey distillery, it has trailblazed a range of award-winning blends and has forged close connections with WA grain producers such as Kevin and Jane Fuchsbichler and son Josh at Bruce Rock.

The family grows a German heritage rye first planted by Kevin's grandfather Michael in 1911 which is used to make a rye whiskey for Whipper Snapper's Wheatbelt series.

The first in the series was a wheat whiskey made with a hard red winter wheat grown on the Armstrong and Blight families' farms near Narrogin.

Arguably their boldest venture was Project Q, the first quinoa whiskey in Australia, with a unique and expensive blend of 65pc quinoa, along with 25pc corn and 10pc malted barley

The golden variety quinoa was grown by Three Farmers Quinoa.

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Behind the name is Ashley Wiese, Megan Gooding and Garren Knell who share a strong connection with Narrogin.

And there is more to come, with Mr McKeon saying they want to release a more traditional-style single malt whiskey next year using malted and unmalted Wheatbelt barley.

Whipper Snapper is just one of 12 boutique wineries, breweries and distillers attending Woolorama in 2023.

Joining them in the Home & Lifestyle Pavilion are Arthur Wines, Fairbrossen Wines, Lancaster Wines and Sin Gin Distillery, a nano-distillery from the Swan Valley that only started in 2017.

Outside, the Market Place food area is a dedicated marquee village for bespoke beverage makers where people will find Eagle Bay Brewing, Dawson Wines, Fifth Estate Wines, and Armadale-based McRobert Distillery, founded in 2017.

With the world of distilling still in a growth phase, up and coming businesses that will feature in this area for the first time include The Packing Shed Distillery from the Perth Hills that launched its first gin only in August 2021.

Thanks to the COVID lockdown in 2020, the owners of Swan River Distillery found the opportunity to turn their interest in botanicals into a fully-fledged distillery and also will be at Woolorama for the first time.