New Riff Distilling in Kentucky: Tours, Tastings & Custom Bourbon Blends

On New Riff Distilling’s Bonded Tour, guests get an up-close look at a gleaming 60-foot-tall copper still tower — while discovering amusing facts about New Riff’s spirit-making process.

“People are surprised to learn … that we got to produce beer to get to the whiskey,” says lead tour ambassador Grover Arnold. “Eyes light up, like, oh, Wow!”

A member of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, New Riff crafts Kentucky sour mash whiskey. The Newport, Kentucky, distillery’s bourbon and rye whiskey are made in accordance with the Bottled in Bond Act of 1897 for the highest quality — without any added flavoring. There’s no added coloring, it’s aged in new charred oak barrels, and it’s made without chill filtration.

“These federal requirements were instituted to … achieve what is the actual gold standard of reducing whiskey spirit,” Arnold says. “The non-chill filtration allows to give the full taste of what is the actual mature spirit that we produce.”

The Bonded Tour takes you through the bourbon distilling process from grain to barrel, including sour mashing.

“We walk you through every stage of the journey where we mill the grain, sour mash it, get to see it actually percolating and more or less fermenting inside the tanks to walking to the still tower to actually see it cascade down the column, to distill out the alcohol that we created in it by fermenting it for three to four days to establish it as a beer base,” says Arnold. “Taking that beer through … intense steam and heat to strip the alcohol from the beer to refine it and condense it down to a beer spirit that will eventually go in that barrel.”

The tour ends at the gauging and barreling room. Enjoy tastings throughout, including of New Riff’s Bottled in Bond bourbon and rye, a single-barrel rye and bourbon and an exclusive whiskey selection, currently a malted rye with a sherry finish.

You can also opt for the Happy Hour Tour, which includes the Bonded Tour and discounted happy hour menu pricing in the sleek Aquifer Tasting Room.

Pick up where the Bonded Tour left off with the Barrel Proof Tour at the West Newport Campus, where the rickhouse holds barrels aging for a minimum of four years. Also see the dumping and gauging rooms and the turn-of-the-century bottling hall. In the rickhouse, participants get a chance to taste straight from a barrel, comparing it to a bottled single-barrel spirit. They also get to taste a barrel-proof bourbon and rye and a surprise offering.

For a rare experience, participate in the Blend, in which you create your own personal blend of bourbon or rye by tasting from three barrels and then selecting the amounts to blend of each one, crafting a take-home bottle.

“They’ll get the chance to build their own profile while we taste and give notes as we walk through the process,” Arnold says. “They get to taste what they created. It’s like, Man, this is cool.”

People enjoy that the tours come with a $10 discount off a $25 store purchase. They wear earbuds, so they can hear the tour guide even while they witness live production.

“You get a true behind-the-scenes viewpoint of what takes place when you come on a production day, generally a Tuesday, Thursday, Friday,” Arnold says. “You literally get to see the live action of building this wonderful spirit together.”

24 Distillery Way, Newport, Kentucky, 859-261-7433, newriffdistilling.com