New Riff Backsetter Peated Backset Rye

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B

New Riff Backsetter Peated Backset Bourbon and Rye
(Credit: New Riff Distilling)

New Riff’s inaugural Backsetter release consists of two new spins on their staple whiskeys, their bonded bourbon and rye. That spin is the use of backset from the mash of an entirely separate, third whiskey, which was made with a mash of peated malted barley and rye. What makes all this so unorthodox is that in the traditional sour mash process, backset is transferred from one mash to a duplicate mash as a quality control measure.

For these inaugural Backsetter releases, the whiskeys were not just bonded. Both the bourbon and rye came from batchings of 12 or 13 barrels each, so although they are not billed as such, they were also technically small batch whiskeys. Consequently, neither was had an especially large production run.

The question becomes how much of an influence will the backset from a different mash have on a given whiskey. In the case of the Backsetter Peated Bourbon, that was a striking influence. For the rye, not so much.

The Whiskey
The nose on this rye packs cereals, spices and wood, making it like fresh baked oatmeal and ginger cookies served on a warm, wooden platter. The flavor is drier and spicier, with just a hint of vanilla. The finish pushes on in that vein, running dry with toasty cereals and spicy wood, turning to an ashy note as it fades away.

In the bourbon, the peat made its presence felt much earlier and in a more satisfying way. Here, the personality of the backset didn’t come to the foreground until the very end. It’s a nice rye nonetheless, but two more contrasting results to come out of the same experiment is hard to imagine.

The Price
New Riff Backsetter Peated Backset Rye costs $50. The release just went on sale today with New Riff’s in-house whiskey club, and will see distribution to Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Nashville, California and D.C. soon.