Erisman eases New Riff into older, bolder whiskies

As co-founder and vice president at New Riff Distilling, Jay Erisman helped build the Newport, Ky., distillery and encouraged owner Ken Lewis to leverage historic Kentucky practices—sour mashing, high-rye mash bills, no chill filtration, traditional barrel aging methods—to develop distinct flavor profiles for its whiskeys.

 The Lewis-Erisman partnership began many years prior with Erisman’s work as fine spirits manager at The Party Source, the massive beverage retail outlet Lewis founded and sold to his beloved employees. During that time, Erisman gained access to the production, warehouses, portfolios and product development at some of the Kentucky’s top distilleries, experiences that shaped his innovative approach to whiskey making.

Over a decade ago, when the men formulted their plans for New Riff (the name alludes to its new riffs on old whiskey making traditions), one of many benchmarks set was that the first whiskies bearing its name would be Bottled-In-Bond.

As those barrels of bourbon and rye reached maturity, about three-fourths of those lots were bottled, while the other quarter continued aging. From those latter lots came a slew of specialty products featuring unique barrels, heirloom grains and specialty malts. In 2023, its 7-year-old Sour Mash Single Malt Whiskey debuted, followed in 2024 by an 8-year rye and an 8-year bourbon. New Riff’s long desire to produce older whiskies was coming to fruition, and barrels currently aging beyond those numbers have Erisman convinced that older releases are inevitable.

Erisman talked with BourbonBanter.com about that journey from 4-year to 8-year releases and, potentially, well beyond.

People say all the time they can’t believe our whiskies are this good at 4 years old. We love that. But we’ve always wanted to have older whiskies. And since becoming a great small distillery of the world was always a goal of ours, we knew that goal had to rely on older whiskey.

“Dude, we had to make some money!”

Holding back 20 to 30 percent of what you make is a generous thing to do, but waiting is expensive. You have people who say, “Why didn’t you just wait until it was 8 years old at the beginning?” You tell them, “Dude, we had to make some money!” At the beginning of a distillery, you’re hemorrhaging money into barrels and warehouses every year. You can only do that for so long. At least we chose Bottled-In-Bond, which was a gracious investment by Ken Lewis.

We wanted to make great, old whiskeys, but not so that someday we could just come out with a special barrel or a private gift shop release. Because we set aside a lot of it to age longer, we now have 8-year-old bourbon and 8-year-old rye bottles going out across the country. You can do that when you wait.

That those 8-year releases aren’t Bottled-In-Bond … that kind of broke my heart. But it was the smart thing to do because it allows us to drop more consistent (larger) releases to each market. We’re not going to tell a market, “Oh, you’ll get half a pallet this time, even though you got a full pallet last time.” We want them to get consistent amounts.

“Whiskey can be delicious when it’s young, too.”

In one (BIB) season, we had 20 barrels that were 8 years old. But just across the (BIB dateline) in July, a different season, we had nine other barrels that allowed us to release 29 total barrels and keep those scheduled allocations more consistent. All of it was 8-years-old, but not Bottled-In-Bond. We’ll return to that standard someday.

Whiskey can be delicious when it’s young, too. If somebody says, “I love your 4-year-old and I’ll just stick with that,” then, hey, man, that’s fantastic. I know serious bourbon fans out there who don’t like old whiskey. We all pretty much agree that 8-years-old is a sweet spot for a bourbon. But there are 12-year bourbons that also are great. So, I think even guys who love our 4-year-old should still buy our 8 year and see how fantastic it is.

By doing that, you get the chance to walk with us in our lives as whiskey makers. Seeing whiskeys like New Riff mature into the world is fascinating. I mean, I’ve got an 11-year-old. Would I not wonder what he’s going to be like when he’s 21? Of course, I want to know what he’s like at 21. It’s kind of the same with older whiskies.

Ken Lewis and I have tasted a lot of real vintage stuff. We have had some friends over the years with old dusty collections—I’m talking 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s—and they’re very generous friends. We learned a lot about those old flavors, and I started to wonder to what extent a modern distillery could turn back the clock on whiskey making.

We never wanted to use someone else’s recipe to make whiskey like they did 120 years ago. What we’ve asked is: What if you threw New Riff whiskey back into those days?

Barrel entry proof is one part of that. The entry proof for the recipe (that would be named Ol’ New Riff) was 103. For that we chose all heirloom grains like … Blue Clarage and Yellow Leaming corn … Balboa rye … two-row malted barley, not six-row barley, which modern distillers use. We wanted to use things that were typical to the 19^th Century.

The difference in barrels has to be in there also. They may not have been kiln dried back in the late 1800s, just air dried. So, Ol’ New Riff was made with an un-kilned barrel.

The water that was used to cut proof for the barrel is definitely different. They didn’t have reverse osmosis machines way back when.

We wanted a single malt, but we wanted to honor the Kentucky tradition of whiskey making. So, we did sour mashing for that, and we used a column still to make it, no pot still. … I say proudly, “Damn it, people, this is Kentucky-style single malt!”

“These are not delicate little Scotches–and I love delicate little Scotches. But this is fat ass Kentucky-style whiskey.”

What I mean about the Kentucky style is it creates big, bold whiskeys. These are not delicate little Scotches–and I love delicate little Scotches. But this is fat ass Kentucky-style whiskey. Kentucky-style single malts usually mean at least some percentage of corn, but this is 100 percent malt. It’s an exploration of Scottish styles, and we used six different barleys to make beers from those unique malts. Then, we blended those whiskeys as our Sour Mash Single Malt. This is not made like most small whiskies around the world, in a pot still. This is made just like our bourbons; in a column still. We think that’s great.