Whiskey Review: Square 6 Wheated Bourbon

Introduction

We’re checking out a bourbon that, until this bottle showed up in our hands, neither of us had ever heard of: Square 6 Wheated Bourbon. There’s a pretty good reason for that. Square 6 is a Kentucky-exclusive whiskey from Heaven Hill, sold only at the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience in Louisville.

Square 6 is a blend of two different wheated bourbon mash bills. The first is 74% corn, 16% wheat, and 10% malted barley, while the second is 68% corn, 20% wheat, and 12% malted barley. Those whiskeys are blended together and bottled at a fairly robust 105 proof.

That combination certainly got our attention. We’ve had a somewhat checkered history with Evan Williams on the podcast. It’s a beloved brand, particularly among budget bourbon drinkers, but we’ve never quite vibed with some of its expressions the way other whiskey drinkers do. Bob remains a fan of the straightforward Evan Williams Black Label, but some of the brand’s other bottles haven’t connected with us.

Still, a distillery-exclusive, 105-proof wheated bourbon from Heaven Hill sounds awfully promising. The catch? Square Six costs about $90 a bottle. At that price, we went into this expecting something considerably more ambitious than an average bourbon.

This review is taken from our episode "Hacksaw Ridge / Square 6 Wheated Bourbon." Click the link to listen to this review in audio form.

Nose

Brad: This is like a really simple, straightforward wheated nose. It is very grain-forward. There’s a lot of cereal, wheat, a little bit of spiciness of clove, and some vanilla. But it’s a very simple and straightforward nose that I didn’t dislike.

There’s nothing here that I was super jazzed about. It’s a 6.5/10 for me.

Bob: I’m going to be at about a 6/10 on this one, too, man, because it smells very young. I’m not seeing an age statement on this. It just smells very, very young. I’m going to be generous and give it a 6/10 here on the nose, Brad.

Taste

Brad: I think palate-wise, I’m kind of in a similar vein. There’s nothing offensive about this. There’s cherry, it’s kind of got like a Malt-O-Meal vibe going on, there’s vanilla, and there’s a nice simple white sugar taste.

But if you noticed, all my nosing notes are just kind of bland, straightforward things. It’s a 6/10 for me on the palate. I can’t point to anything that I’m like, that’s bad. But there’s nothing that makes me get excited about this.

Bob: Are there any sandwich ingredients? You’re not a pickle guy. Let me make this metaphor. If someone made you a sandwich that had pickles on it, and then they say, bro, it’s fine, just take the pickles off of it.

Brad: Dude. Pickle juice infects everything.

Bob: See, it’s not fine because it infuses everything, right? That’s how I am sometimes with raw onion. If it’s a really pungent onion, I don’t like it on things.

And so this one is like that, but it has the note of really young, unaged grain in it. It’s almost impressive how much other flavor they’re able to get into this that I really like. But at the end of the day, when you have that one note in there, you can’t just take it out. It’s just kind of infusing everything.

There are some really great fruit notes. It’s got some subtle maple syrup notes to it, some great bright cherry notes. And then right at the very end, it’s that young, unaged, almost craft whiskey flavor that you get from something that just hasn’t been aged long enough.

I’m going to give it a 6.5/10 here, Brad.

Finish

Brad: I think for me on the finish, it’s very wheaty. There’s a lot of vanilla. It turns for me into like an effervescent cola. There’s a little bit of cinnamon going on. I don’t really get any of the fruitiness that you’re talking about.

Once again, I’m going to give it a 6/10 on the finish. It’s okay.

Bob: Vanilla dominates for me on the finish here. It’s not super long-lasting, especially at 105 proof. I’m kind of shocked at how quickly it goes away.

This is kind of just a disappointment all around, man. It’s not unpleasant, but I do wonder if I’m inflating my scores a little bit because this is made by a big player. If this was a craft whiskey, would I be giving it this much benefit of the doubt? I don’t know.

I’ve given it a six, six and a half, six. This is a just slightly above-average whiskey for me.

6/10

Balance

Bob: I guess on balance I’ll give it a 6/10 as well. This is a just slightly above-average whiskey for me. And I think when we factor in the value here, Brad, we’re going to have some hard topics to answer.

Brad: We sure are. I’ll go ahead and give it a 6.5/10 on the balance. I think it is what it is throughout.

Value

At this point, the problem with Square Six became considerably harder to overlook. This isn’t a $30 experiment or an inexpensive bottle you grab because you’re curious about a distillery-exclusive Heaven Hill release. It costs roughly $90, and that changed the conversation considerably.

Brad: Bob, this bottle, not only is it difficult to come by just for the geographic reasons of you have to go to Louisville to get it, it’s also a $90 bottle of whiskey.

I’m so sorry, Bob. I could get a bottle of Barrell Seagrass for this price. I could get nearly any bottle of Scotch that I would want to drink for at or less than this price. I could get almost two bottles of Woodford Double Oaked for this price. The list goes on and on and on. I could get five bottles of Rebel 100 for about this price.

I literally could just go on and on and on listing the stuff I would rather buy than this for $90.

1/10 on value.

Bob: You can get a handle of T.W. Samuels in Kentucky for $25. And it is not only a better value than this, it’s better whiskey than this. You could get almost four handles for the price of this bottle of whiskey.

I understand that you’re going to the distillery and you want a souvenir to take home with you. But guys, if you’re going to the Evan Williams distillery, they have other bottles of Evan Williams. Evan Williams Red Label, the 12-year-old that is highly sought after, you can find it at the distillery most of the time. Are you going to be paying triple digits? Absolutely. I guarantee you it’s better than this.

Do not spend $90 on this.

Brad: Here’s the deal, Bob. If this costs $30, it would be like a six to seven out of ten on value. Maybe. At $30. If it was $24, I’d be like, okay, sure. It’s not great, but that’s like a seven, eight out of ten value.

$90!

Bob: There’s no reason for it. I’m going to give it a 1/10 with you.

Final Scores

Brad: 26/50

Bob: 25.5/50

Average: 25.75/50

Brad: I’m sad. I was looking forward to this. It seemed like it was going to be a high-end wheated whiskey. It’s just not.

Bob: I’ve said before that Heaven Hill, I think top to bottom, their portfolio I like better than Buffalo Trace. I think people still sleep on Heaven Hill for some reason. This is not one that improves the portfolio to me. I will rave about many, many, many of their products. This just isn’t one of them, guys.

At Film & Whiskey, the 35/50 mark is generally where we begin recommending that you try a pour at a bar or consider buying a bottle. A score around 40/50 represents a great whiskey, while 45/50 is excellent territory reserved for some of the best bottles we encounter.

Square Six Wheated Bourbon doesn't come particularly close to that threshold. At an average of 25.75/50, this is one of those rare occasions when our recommendation is straightforward: skip it.

The frustrating thing is that the whiskey itself isn’t terrible. There are bright cherry, vanilla, maple, cereal, and cola notes here, and neither of us found the actual drinking experience outright unpleasant. But both of us kept coming back to the same youthful grain character, straightforward flavor profile, and surprisingly short finish for a 105-proof bourbon. Those shortcomings would be much easier to forgive at $25 or $30.

At roughly $90, they’re impossible to ignore. The distillery exclusivity may make Square Six an interesting souvenir from a trip to the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience, but exclusivity alone doesn't make a whiskey worth the price. Heaven Hill makes plenty of bottles we enthusiastically recommend. Square Six Wheated Bourbon simply isn't one of them.