Tasting notes

nose

slowly unfolding dark fruit, buttery sherry-soaked oak and walnut skin, with rye spice lifting over a touch of vanilla

palate

full and broad, opening savory and dry before sappy sherry and malty grain take over, with oak and grain well knit

finish

late-building; a burst of clove, light menthol and wood spice arrives with the skins of dark blue fruit, brightening as it fades

Mash bill

100% malted rye. The grain is German malted rye, which the distillery has made whiskey from since 2014; the producer credits malted rye with a fruity-spice depth that unmalted rye does not give. New Riff treats this recipe as a malt whiskey first and a rye second, which is why it chose sherry casks, a finish more often used for malt whiskies. It is cooked as a sour mash and fermented in open tanks.

Why it's craft

Few distilleries mash nothing but malted rye, and fewer still put it through oloroso and Pedro Ximenez casks the way a malt whisky would be finished. New Riff, which seldom finishes its whiskey, made this as a deliberate exception and bottles it at whatever strength the casks give, without chill filtration. The base spirit is its own six-year malted rye, made in Newport since the distillery opened in 2014.