Five years ago I tried my first bottle of New Riff bourbon, and I have been a fan ever since. As the distillery started in a parking lot of a big box liquor store in Newport, Kentucky just outside of Cincinnati comes of age, so has its bourbon. For our anniversary, my wife bought me a bottle of New Riff 8 year old bourbon. Bottled at 100 proof (which is one of two proofs New Riff uses, 100 and cask strength) using its traditional high rye mashbill of 65% corn, 30% rye, and 5% malted barley, this would have been a bottled in bond release but for the fact that they used whiskey distilled in two different distilling seasons blended to together, so the younger whiskey is eight years old blended likely with a nine year old. My wife snagged this for me at Hokus and she told me they received only one bottle. New Riff has just become available in Louisiana, and I am sure the 8 year old release is extremely limited. The back of the label indicates that this bottling has some of the earliest whiskies that were barreled soon after New Riff’s founding in 2014. A bourbon released by them in 2024 with from two different distilling seasons but both eight years old because they weren’t making the same quantities back then is definitely drawing on their earliest batches. However, the price tag is only $70. I don’t use the word only lightly. Starting a brand new distillery, creating a short term sourced brand OKI to put your bottling line to use while you wait four long years to release your own distillate, hoping all this works out, starting to release your own bourbon in a few states while you inventory builds, then adding a few more states as the inventory builds a little bit more, while holding back some of your earliest barrels, waiting for them to age, and then you basically add only $25 to the price tag for barrels you have been holding for eight years? New Riff holds back 20-30% of its production in any given year for long aging. That is a huge investment of time and money. So, yeah, this is only $70.

The color on this is a nice deep amber, which likely would have been darker but for proofing down this whiskey with water. On the swirl is a nice oily sheen with a few big droplets. On the nose is candied fruits, caramelized brown sugar, some Horween leather notes, and oak. Really great nose. On the palate, I get truly classic bourbon flavors of caramel and vanilla, candied cherries, black and red pepper, and pipe tobacco. Really nice bourbon without the grassy notes I get on a lot of high rye bourbons. Mouthfeel is full bodied and the whiskey is full of flavor despite not being at cask strength. On the finish the candied cherries dominate in a really delightful way, along with black pepper, and hints of clove and oak.

It is amazing at what another four to five years of barrel time will add to a bourbon. I have an open bottle of New Riff Single Barrel so I decided to do a comparison. At four years old at cask strength, New Riff’s bourbon is extremely good. But at eight years old, New Riff is really starting to hit at true bourbon greatness. When its age starts hitting double digits, say, ten, twelve, or fifteen years old, I predict that these bottles will be among the most coveted among bourbon connoisseurs. For now, this eight year old is truly impressive.