New Riff Distillery

New Riff Distillery is a Newport, Kentucky distillery founded in 2014, producing high-rye Bottled-in-Bond bourbon and rye whiskey using sour mash fermentation and non-chill filtration. Core expressions include Kentucky Straight Bourbon BiB, Malted Rye BiB, Single Barrel Bourbon, and seasonal Backsetter Bourbon (peated backset) and OKI series.

Browse all bourbon and rare and allocated bottles at Wooden Cork.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does New Riff use Bottled-in-Bond across its core lineup?

Most distilleries produce a BiB expression as a premium tier above their standard releases. New Riff made the opposite decision — Bottled-in-Bond is the baseline standard for their entire core lineup rather than a special designation. This means all New Riff core bourbon and rye meets the federal BiB requirements: single distillery, single distilling season, aged minimum 4 years in a federally bonded warehouse, bottled at exactly 100 proof. The decision reflects a philosophy that the BiB standard — originally enacted in 1897 as a consumer protection against adulterated whiskey — should be the minimum rather than a premium tier. It also means New Riff’s standard bottles are 100 proof across the board rather than the 80–90 proof common in mainstream whiskey.

What is the New Riff Backsetter Bourbon?

Backsetter refers to the use of peated backset — spent mash from a previous distillation run — in the fermentation of the new grain bill. Standard sour mash whiskey uses unpeated backset to acidify the mash and maintain consistency between batches. New Riff’s Backsetter uses backset from peated barley distillation, introducing a subtle smoky character into the fermentation rather than through peated grain in the primary mashbill. The result is a bourbon with trace peat influence that reads as a complementary savory note rather than a dominant smoky character — unlike Scottish-style heavily peated whiskies.