New Riff Blue Clarage and Yellow Leaming, Ranger Bottles Summer 2023
NR continues to be one of my favorite distilleries because they do things I’d want to try just because they make sense as experiments. This year’s summer ranger club bottles were 2 batches of their 5+ year old, 50% ABV high rye bourbon (65/30/5) with two heirloom corn varietals making up the entire corn bill for each: yellow Leaming and blue clarage respectively. Check out the photo of the backs of the bottles for the details of these varietals or google them and get the agricultural details as I eventually did.
Admittedly, a large component of my enjoyment of the two bottles has been the concept of changing a single variable (in this case an ingredient) and learning about the effect on the product. I’m pretty sure this is one of the nerdier things I’ve said in a string of nerdy musings but NR is giving us the opportunity to explore ingredients with them and I love it. While my days of trypsin-washing cells and patch-clamping axons are long gone the laboratory scientist in me wants everything to be explored with single variable modifications and New Riff is just punching my ticket!
I love their balboa rye and that’s the most widely available example of NR hunting down an heirloom grain and just going all in on it. I think this exploration of corn (not as mellow as some fucking corn fyi) is a commendable idea and wonderful paired release. I’m here for it: let’s taste!
(Tasted unblinded but without preconceptions, 15m rest, neat)
**Yellow Leaming**
**Nose:** caramel, corn, high rye bourbon, oak, and hay
**Palate:** sweet upfront followed by a wave of pleasantly bitter vegetal notes, rye herbs, some caramel corn, notably thick body, clean baking spice, oaky pop, some almost spritzy mineral notes on the back
**Finish:** pretty short and sweet, nice spice and caramel flavors, high rye heat
**Overall: 6.2/10**
Good body, interesting flavor that is spicy but not far from what you’re expecting from NRSB, some unexpected zing on the tongue and a short pleasant finish
**Blue Clarage**
**Nose:** similar to the above but with more cinnamon, a little sweeter/vegetal but a little rougher when comparing directly
**Palate:** caramel, oak, Nonino, Marion berries, corn silk, some spice thats somewhere between baking spice and heat, some minor notes that remind me of Hungarian oak barrels and the more resinous finishing barrels
**Finish:** lingering heat, warm spice, sweetness, caramel again, long smooth slow fade
**Overall: 6.5/10**
This bottle is a little more exotic than the YL. It has a distinct berry flavor that I didn’t pick up on the first or second pour but seems to have opened up with the bottle. It also has a longer finish and I like it a little more.
**In summary** I like both of these bottles. They are different than the standard NR SB which I also enjoy. They aren’t 10/10 bombshells from the bottom of a forgotten rickhouse or wildly different than the standard NRSB but the experience is a 9/10 for me. I’ve been sitting here sipping back and forth between the two for an hour and had to refresh the pours because these are similar but also notably different. After that I think the BI’m guessing this taste is one of my least repeatable ones just because the flavors are so similar. Hope these varietals get incorporated into the NR lineup somehow and excited to continue with the interesting ranger Club experiences!
t8ke Scoring Scale:
1 | Disgusting | So bad I poured it out.
2 | Poor | I wouldn’t consume by choice.
3 | Bad | Multiple flaws.
4 | Sub-par | Not bad, but many things I’d rather have.
5 | Good | Good, just fine.
6 | Very Good | A cut above.
7 | Great | Well above average.
8 | Excellent | Really quite exceptional.
9 | Incredible | An all time favorite.
10 | Perfect | Perfect.
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