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Please read and drink responsibly.
Breaking Bourbon Award Winning Single Barrel Club picks are selected by Breaking Bourbon, and whenever possible with the help of Patreon supporters. The bottles are made available to Patreon supporters first by pledge tier. If any bottles remain after all supporters have had an opportunity to purchase, they are made available to the public on a first come, first served basis. Each barrel is sponsored by a retailer partner, who sells the bottles directly to end purchasers.
Retailer Partner: Seelbach’s
Classification: Straight Bourbon
Company: New Riff Distilling
Distillery: New Riff Distilling
Age: 4 Years, 8 Months (Distilled 9/28/2020)
Proof: 114.9
Mashbill: 65% Corn, 30% Rye, 5% Malted Barley
Yield: 216 Bottles
Release Date: August 2025
Rollout Schedule
Tier 1 - Monday 8/4/2025 @ 2PM ET
Tier 2 - Tuesday 8/5/2025 @ 2PM ET
Tier 3 - Wednesday 8/6/25 @ 2PM ET
Tier 4 - Thursday 8/7/25 @ 2PM ET
In 2019, we interviewed New Riff Distilling Co-Founder Jay Erisman to learn more about the distillery and share with our readers. Since then, we’ve selected five barrels, with this latest barrel being our 5th. New Riff Distilling’s onsite barrel selection process is extremely well thought out, and we couldn’t recommend it more highly if you have an opportunity to select a barrel.
One of the most exciting aspects of selecting New Riff barrels is the extreme variation in flavor profiles they achieve across barrels in the sample set. It’s proof that barrels derived from the same mashbill can taste dramatically different due to other factors. It highlights the purpose of selecting single barrels in the first place - to find something unique that doesn’t taste quite like anything else. Like many of our other New Riff picks, we tasted barrels showcasing this extreme variation to the max.
For this particular barrel, we opted for the one with a flavor profile that brings together a wide range of flavors and delivers them with a rich, buttery mouthfeel. The flavor profile includes deeper aged oak, and as a result, it tastes older than it is with additional notes of barrel char, dark chocolate, and tobacco leaf.
Because of the range of flavors this barrel delivers, we nicknamed it “Rifftastic” to capture the sentiment.
We have been selecting a New Riff barrel each year for several years, and it is always interesting to explore the wide range of flavors their barrels exhibit. We hope you enjoy this one as much as we do.
The bourbon begins with a darker-than-usual depth of color. On the nose, traditional flavors of caramel and brown sugar are met with accents of strawberry rhubarb pie, barrel char, and cinnamon bark. On the palate, a soiree of dark fruits, caramel, aged oak, and dark chocolate is delivered with a rich, buttery mouthfeel. The finish brings a wave of cinnamon and brown sugar, which are quickly met with flavors of savory tobacco leaf and aged oak. The bourbon drinks much older than it is, with ample aged oak and richness of barrel-influenced flavors.
About Seelbach’s
For this pick, we partnered with spirits retailer Seelbach’s, which was founded by Blake Riber, also the creator of Bourbonr and the Bourbonr Facebook group. An online-only retailer with a twist, we interviewed Riber to discuss how he’s running his shop differently than everyone else. “Unlocking Craft Spirits” he calls it - seeking out up-and-coming craft distilleries and learning about their process and tasting through their products to find hidden gems.
Distillers, Producers, and Retailers: If you would like to be a part of this program and get your name in front of millions of bourbon enthusiasts, contact us.
Please note these bottles will not be sold by Breaking Bourbon, but will be sold by retailers we partner with in order to fulfill the orders and ship the bottles directly to Patreon supporters. Breaking Bourbon will receive no compensation from our partner retailers under these agreements (with the exception of a bottle from each barrel for editorial purposes). If you represent a retailer and ship to consumers and you’re interested in partnering just let us know!
