Tasting notes

nose

ripe and rounded, with rye grass, cinnamon, clove and red apple over darker molasses, sassafras and charred oak

palate

medium-bodied and coating; it opens dry and lightly oaky around a sweeter core, then builds to spearmint, clove and juicy apple, with dark chocolate and a grassy, mineral streak

finish

long; clove, mint and peppercorn hang on, drying toward bitter chocolate and grassy minerality

Mash bill

95% rye, 5% malted rye. It is the same all-rye, non-GMO recipe as New Riff's flagship rye, with the small malted-rye share providing the enzymes for conversion instead of the usual malted barley. Fermentation is sour mash in open-top tanks, which lets the distillery's own microflora take part.

Awards

• Gold Medal — New Orleans Spirits Competition 2025
• Double Gold Medal — Barleycorn Awards 2024

Why it's craft

New Riff began setting aside about a third of its production for long aging when it opened in 2014, and this is the first eight-year-old cut of its own rye, not a bought-in stock. The recipe is all rye grain, made by sour mash in open fermenters and run through a copper column and doubler in Newport. It is held at 100 proof and never chill filtered, so the oils and texture built over eight years stay in the glass.