Brand
Ol’ New Riff
Grain Receipt
(Bourbon)
60% heirloom corn • 26% balboa rye • 14% two row malted barley
(Rye)
65% Balboa rye • 30% heirloom corn • 15% two row malted barley
Distiller
Bryon Martin
Whiskey
Straight Kentucky Bourbon
Straight Kentucky Rye
Proof
100
Age Statement
At least 6 years
Barrel
Oak
Warehoused
Kentucky
Flavors
(Bourbon)
Juicy, fruit-forward malted sweetness
(Rye)
Spicier oak and macerated darker fruits and berries
What’s Vital
They’re bringing back Bottled in Bond. Not by themselves—a lot of independent distillers are taking this path. Bottled in Bond was developed as a way for whiskey makers to ensure a standard of quality back when unscrupulous purveyors put implausible particulates into their whiskey to stretch and to make it bite after they’d stretched it. Want some red ants in your whiskey? Shoe polish? Tobacco spit? All these ingredients and probably a lot more nobody knows about were added by rectifiers to cheap whiskey to make it look and taste expensive. That’s why serious distillers created Bottled in Bond—assure buyers the whiskey was real.
But New Riff is putting a nerd spin on the practice by doubling down on the quality of every ingredient and every technique. Their bourbon isn’t made with mere corn, it’s made with blue carage and yellow leaming corn. Not merely rye, but Balboa rye.
They used 19th century cooperage techniques. They used the water from the aquifer beneath their distillery. They did everything they could to make Straight Bourbon and Straight Rye as if they’d traveled 124 years back in time.
The result is two of the most interesting bottles of the year, with weirdly mirrored mash bills. The bourbon is 60% heirloom corn, 26% Balboa rye, and 14% two-row malted barley. The rye is 65% Balboa rye, 30% heirloom corn, and 15% two-row malted barley.
