There’s a symbiosis between the technical world of the craft beer industry and that of the distilling industry that sometimes goes unacknowledged. Although beer production and distillation obviously involve different processes, those working in the beer industry have an understanding of fermentation in particular that can make them a natural fit for a sideways transition into the whiskey world. That’s how it was, anyway, for Brian Sprance, the head distiller at Kentucky’s New Riff Distilling, which in the last few years has become an emerging and oft-cited favorite of the whiskey blogosphere. Sprance built his alcohol knowledge as a brewer for Boston Beer Co. in Cincinnati, and was hired by New Riff founder Ken Lewis thanks to his knowledge of fermentation—the distillation part, he then picked up while training with legendary consulting distiller Larry Ebersold, he of Seagrams fame.
It was only natural, then, that at some point New Riff was going to make a whiskey that called upon Sprance’s background in beer. But rather than distilling actual beer to make whiskey or “beer schnapps,” as some have taken to calling it, Sprance decided to instead tinker with the familiar bourbon mash bill, incorporating new varieties of malted barley that are typically seen only in the beer world. The resulting whiskey can still carry the title of bourbon, thanks to a mashbill that is predominantly corn, but the rest of the mash looks nothing like any whiskey you’ve likely seen before. That’s the gimmick behind New Riff Winter Whiskey—it’s a spirit designed to evoke the darker end of the beer spectrum.
Personally, the idea excited me, because I’ve actually had a few whiskeys like this before. One was a Georgian-made rye whiskey that was made with a portion of heavily roasted malted barley, while another was the literal distillation of Deschutes Brewery’s flagship Black Butte Porter into a spirit, and in both cases the results the results were beguiling in their novelty. In particular, the Black Butte Porter Whiskey possessed an amazing roasty note, like biting into a high-end dark chocolate bar. I was definitely curious to see what New Riff might do with a similar concept.
New Riff Winter Whiskey is based on a bourbon mashbill, but replaces the standard rye entirely with other grains—both barley and oatmeal in this case, in order to evoke “chocolate oatmeal stout,” according to Sprance. The final result ends up being 65% corn, 20% malted barley, 7% pale ale malt, 5% steel cut raw oats, and 3% chocolate malt. Like other New Riff bottles, this is a bottled-in-bond bourbon aged at least four years, bottled at 100 proof without chill filtration. It carries an MSRP of around $50, which doesn’t seem bad to me considering the novelty here.
The presence of “chocolate malt” does require a bit of explanation to those who don’t know the brewing industry well, or have no homebrewing experience. Chocolate malt is a deeply roasted variety of malted barley, so named more for its color than specifically for the flavor it imparts. It’s used in small quantities in the making of styles such as porter and stout, contributing tons of coloration to the final beer while also contributing drier roast flavors. Some may perceive those flavors as having cocoa or dark chocolate dimensions, but this is by no means malt “flavored” with chocolate or anything like that. Savvy?