I have to admit, I was disappointed by this one. On a recent visit to the Ranger Creek “brewstillery” in San Antonio (the beer was much better, particularly the coffee ale and the prickly pair sour) I tried a pour of this along with a distillery exclusive “heavily smoked” version, which supposedly had a much higher percentage of mesquite smoked barley. I found both expressions lacking on the nose. The mesquite is hardly present on the nose in the original and starts to jump out in the heavily smoked version, but both pale in comparison to the Coklegan Single Malt or the Whisky Del Bac Dorado. The taste was pleasant enough, with some chocolate and soft malt notes, but the finish was week and left me wanting. This is still a young distillery and I have hope for them yet, especially as the Texas Whisky Trail picks up momentum, so perhaps in future distillations they’ll tinker with their recipe more to integrate the mesquite smoke more effectively. For now though, my rating stands this, and I hope to try something more compelling in the future. For now, if you’re looking for a mesquite smoked American single malt, go with one of the other two I listed above if you can find them.
Ranger Creek Rimfire Mesquite Smoked Texas Single Malt
About this bottle
Rimfire is a whiskey styled after peated Scottish single malt, but instead of peat smoke for the barley, Ranger Creek uses Texas mesquite wood. The mashbill used is actually Ranger Creek's Mesquite Smoked Porter beer, sans the hops, which is made from five different barley varietals. Rimfire is aged for 6 months in new, small American oak barrels. All whiskeys from their Small Caliber series are bottled in 375 ml sized bottles.
How it tastes
Measured across 14 flavor axes. Tap a note to find other bottles that lead with it.
Reviews
Showing the most detailed of 21 parsed reviews.
Nose: Watermelon that has been left in the garbage for months but also the garbage is on fire. The salted tears of a widow. Light caramel banana. Vanilla ice cream. Taste: Wet cardboard that has been used to dry a dog. The chocolate center of a Tootsie Pop. Dense moldy rye bread. Adding water somehow turns the nose into christmas spice and candy canes, with that fake Christmas flower scent. Taste is still the same except there is more oak and the cardboard taste intensifies. Why does this exist please just get Brimstone instead.
Smells like a Texas BBQ over mesquite smoke. Not a whole lotta sugar in it, but the smoke itself tastes quite sweet. A bit more smooth and rounded than the Andalusia Stryker.
Have a very distinctive flavor that I can’t quite put my finger on. Very very smoky with loads of flavors. Great whiskey but has a medium hard finish with a long linger.
Honestly not sure the point of this whiskey. Smokey, sure, but the flavor besides that is weak and what flavor there is is very off-putting.
Strong chocolate taste, notes of toasted marshmellow and tropical fruit. Subtle finish with a stronger taste over the tongue
15 more reviews were collected for this bottle. The longest ones are shown first.
Tastes like this
Closest flavor profiles across the whole catalog.
