Whiskey Review: New Riff Single Barrel Bourbon

There are a group of bottles that have been catching my eye recently, one of which is from a distillery called New Riff. Located on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River, it’s a distillery that I’ve heard about from my Ohio friends with increasing frequency and figured it was beyond time for me to grab a bottle and try it out for myself. So I’m starting with their single barrel bourbon, which should give a pretty good understanding of the kind of quality that’s coming out of their barrels.

History

Founded in 2014 by Ken Lewis, who spent most of his career in the distribution and sales side of the liquor business, New Riff Distillery aims to be a new riff (get it?) on an old tradition. Lewis says the key to his success in life has been his ability to create a winning team, and in this case he was joined by “a team of corporate refugees ranging from craft beer to politics” who wanted to try to bring some of that Kentucky magic and transplant it across the river in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The focus of New Riff is on making a quality product using time honored traditions, trying to bring some of that old school care and attention to detail to an industry that has recently been heavily focused on marketing and mass production.

New Riff currently offers five flagship expressions: 100% Malted Rye, Bourbon, Rye, Single Barrel Bourbon, and Single Barrel Rye. They also have released some limited expressions with more exotic grainsB, including Balboa Rye, Kentucky Single Malt Whiskey, Red Turkey Whiskey (featuring heirloom Kentucky grain), and a Winter Whiskey (made with chocolate malt). And they’ve also been dabbling with a gin containing wild forged Kentucky botanicals. 

Product

• Learn More: What Is Bourbon Whiskey?

New Riff follows nearly the same path to a bourbon as any other distillery — what they claim sets them apart is quality throughout the process.

In this case, the distillery uses a 65% Corn, 30% Rye, 5% Malted Barley mashbill for their bourbon. There are multiple checks on the grain quality before leaving the silos; in particular, the corn for this bourbon is non-GMO and checked for foreign material and moisture control before it’s even shipped to the distillery.

These grains are milled, cooked, and fermented in an open top fermentation tank (allowing local, natural yeast to aid in the fermentation in addition to the lab grown stuff) using water sourced from a private aquifer that is located 100 feet directly beneath the distillery. New Riff uses a sour mash process for their whiskeys, which is a time honored tradition during which some of the leftover material from previous distillation runs is used in the following batch to adjust the acidity in the liquid and promote fermentation with minimal spoilage.

After the liquid has been properly fermented, the mildly alcoholic concoction is distilled and placed in new charred American oak barrels. For this expression, all of the liquid inside this bottle came from the same barrel, which was matured for no less than four years (although it could be much longer) before being emptied, proofed down with more local aquifer water, and bottled for sale.

Packaging

In my opinion, New Riff has hit a great balance of classic and modern with this bottle. The bottle itself is classic –- it has a cylindrical body, flaring out ever so slightly as it goes up, ending at shoulder that curves towards the neck at a radius that seems to mirror the corners of an iPhone. The shoulder ends at a medium length neck with a slight bulge in the center. Overall, it looks good, is easy to hold and pour, and stands out without being obnoxious.

I really appreciate the fact they print most of their information directly on the bottle rather than using stuck-on labels on this otherwise beautiful piece of glass. Normal labels (or even transparent plastic ones) would make this look cluttered and detract from the matte gradient that’s going on with the color on the bottle, but painted details work perfectly. The more specific details of the whiskey are printed and possibly hand written on a small label at the bottom of the bottle, well out of the way and still clearly legible.

The thing that stands out the most to me is the embossed wording on the bottle. This is unique to each expression, which means that every product is similar yet very different when it comes to the packaging. That’s also pretty expensive, as the molds for the glass bottles would need to be changed for each expression, and the distillery couldn’t interchange the bottles if there’s too many of one kind and too few of another. It’s an expensive and detail oriented trick that worked its magic on me.

Overall, I like this bottle. Honestly, I picked up up at the store because the bottle drew me in, and it definitely looks good in a home bar. My only gripe is that the top half is colored glass and gets more transparent the further you move to the base — I wish more of the bourbon could be seen with clear glass throughout. That said, the shifting glass color helps bring that “new” modern look to a classic bottle.

Neat

I really like the aroma coming from this bourbon. There is the soft smell of balsa wood that combines with the sweetness of caramel and a pungent sour apple aroma. It’s a great balance between earthy, sweet, and sour.

Those aromas translate nearly directly to the flavors I get on my first sip. There is a mild woody flavor, along with some sour apple dipped in caramel, along with a strong note of fresh fig. As the flavor develops, I started picking up some clove and baking spice flavors, which combined with that sour apple note are the hallmarks of a high rye mashbill (and are absolutely delicious).

Sometimes malted barley doesn’t add much to the mixture — but here I think it really does make a difference. There’s a warming sensation and a distinct bread-like flavor that comes through in the profile and adds a delicious layer to the mix; it’s halfway between toasted whole wheat bread and warm oatmeal. It gives the flavor profile a little more weight that might otherwise be available.

On Ice

As always, the second taste test here at Thirty One Whiskey is to pour an ounce of bourbon over a large ice sphere to see what changes. And in this case, the spirit has some significant shifts in flavors.

To start, the apple is now the prominent flavor while that balsa wood note seems to disappear. At this point, there’s something about this bourbon that reminds me of a liquefied apple cobbler: that rich caramel is still there, joined with a spicy cinnamon to make the illusion complete. It all comes together in a very smooth manner, in which all flavors seem to be well balanced.

The thing that can sometimes be a detriment works to the advantage of New Riff bourbon in this case – the flavor lingers. The flavors sit on your tongue, giving you this sweet / sour / slightly nutty dessert flavor that sticks with you for a bit after the liquid itself is gone.

I think I might actually prefer this on the rocks compared to drinking it neat — there’s just so much more character and interesting flavors going on in the glass.

Cocktail (Old Fashioned)

This is a decent old fashioned, although maybe a little on the sweet side for me. If I were to make this again, I would take a little off the standard barspoon of sugar (or even recommend going without the sweetener altogether).

The flavors that were present neat and on the rocks play a big role here: apple, cinnamon, and sweetness are all pulled together very well by the angostura bitters. Sticking along the dessert storyline, this gives me hints of apple fritter as a good comparison.

While a little sweeter than I would like, I could see this being a good old fashioned for those new to bourbon drinking. 

Fizz (Mule)

This is a surprise to me, as I think I enjoy this Kentucky mule more than the old fashioned. The bitters really helped to drive some cohesiveness to the old fashioned, but the ginger beer here just kicks everything up a notch and gives the bourbon a big bear hug of texture and flavor.

Again, you are getting the constant apple, caramel, and woody flavors — but the ginger flavor in the added ginger beer just goes so well with that sour apple. 

This might be the best Kentucky mule I’ve ever had.

Overall Rating

New Riff has been open for just over a decade, and they are already doing really solid bourbon. As we often see with newer distilleries, it can take a while to find your process and dial things in to create a great bourbon. So while I don’t think they are quite at the ‘great’ mark yet, they are still very good. 

Across the entire review I didn’t have a single bad word to say about it — which I think that says a lot about their focus on quality both in process and ingredients. But there also wasn’t much novel or interesting that really came through. For a company named New Riff, I expect there to be something unique or different that they could add to the conversation… but in the end, this turned out to simply be a good bottle of bourbon for the price range.

Having a good bourbon as a newer distillery is a fantastic start. I’m looking forward to tasting more expressions from them and hope to see them transition from good to great. 

All reviews are evaluated within the context of their specific spirit classification as specified above. Click here to check out similar spirits we have reviewed.

Overall Rating: 3/5
Good bourbon trending to great is what I would consider a New Riff on an old tradition.