New Riff Single Barrel 17-3170

Barrel# 3170 Nose is solid. Sugar, caramel, vanilla, lemon. There’s gingerbread too, snicker-doodles. Holiday pastries. Body is cedar, cinnamon, caramel, sugar. Sawdust. Mild cherry, but it’s not well done. Think cough syrup. There’s grape juice here as well, and that note is well done. Finish is hot, buzzes the lips. Tastes like much more proofage than there is. Bitter chocolate, more cinnamon. Coffee. More grape juice. The more I drink this, the more I like it. The grape notes are growing on me, and given it’s price point (just under $50), I think there’s room for this whiskey. Still, some of the ryes produced by New Riff are so amazing that it’s hard not to be let down by this merely-good-tasting bottle. What’s that called, being a victim of your own success?