New Riff Single Barrel Bourbon “Rifftastic”

While still being one of our favorite distilleries in craft whiskey, it's been over a year since we had a New Riff single barrel on the site. Coincidentally it also came from our friends at Breaking Bourbon. Today they are back with a barrel that is sure to be Rifftastic. 
 
In 2019, the team interviewed New Riff Distilling Co-Founder Jay Erisman to learn more about the distillery and share with our readers. Since then, we’ve selected five barrels, with this latest barrel being our 5th. New Riff Distilling’s onsite barrel selection process is extremely well thought out, and we couldn’t recommend it more highly if you have an opportunity to select a barrel.

One of the most exciting aspects of selecting New Riff barrels is the extreme variation in flavor profiles they achieve across barrels in the sample set. It’s proof that barrels derived from the same mashbill can taste dramatically different due to other factors. It highlights the purpose of selecting single barrels in the first place - to find something unique that doesn’t taste quite like anything else. Like many of our other New Riff picks, we tasted barrels showcasing this extreme variation to the max.
 
For this particular barrel, we opted for the one with a flavor profile that brings together a wide range of flavors and delivers them with a rich, buttery mouthfeel. The flavor profile includes deeper aged oak, and as a result, it tastes older than it is with additional notes of barrel char, dark chocolate, and tobacco leaf.
 
Because of the range of flavors this barrel delivers, we nicknamed it “Rifftastic” to capture the sentiment.
 
We have been selecting a New Riff barrel each year for several years, and it is always interesting to explore the wide range of flavors their barrels exhibit. We hope you enjoy this one as much as we do.

New Riff Distilling Single Barrel Bourbon #30563 114.9 Proof - Selected by Breaking Bourbon

The bourbon begins with a darker-than-usual depth of color.
 
On the nose, traditional flavors of caramel and brown sugar are met with accents of strawberry rhubarb pie, barrel char, and cinnamon bark. 
 
On the palate, a soiree of dark fruits, caramel, aged oak, and dark chocolate is delivered with a rich, buttery mouthfeel.
 
The finish brings a wave of cinnamon and brown sugar, which are quickly met with flavors of savory tobacco leaf and aged oak. The bourbon drinks much older than it is, with ample aged oak and richness of barrel-influenced flavors.