New Riff and Chattanooga Whiskey Collaborate on The Confluence Project

A confluence is the meeting of two rivers; for Newport, Kentucky-based New Riff Distilling and Chattanooga, Tennessee’s Chattanooga Whiskey, The Confluence Project is a meeting of distilleries, joined by a singular mashbill. The mashbill in question is a 100% wheat whiskey, made from four varieties of wheat: 60% red turkey, 24% Appalachian malted, 8% dark malted, and 8% caramel malted. It’s a callback to both New Riff’s Red Turkey wheat whiskey and Chattanooga’s adherence to specialty malts in its high-malt mashbills.

While they may share the same mashbill, the two whiskeys took drastically different journeys to the bottle. New Riff took the whiskey through its standard production process, which includes the use of limestone-filtered water, a four-day fermentation, a barrel entry proof of 110, and new charred oak for maturation. Chattanooga, on the other hand, fermented its whiskey for a full week, entered it into the barrel at various entry proofs ranging from 111 to 120, and used a variety of barrels for aging, highlighting different combinations of seasoning, toasting, and char levels.

The whiskeys from both distilleries were aged for 6 years and bottled as single barrels. New Riff’s Kentucky straight wheat whiskey will be available exclusively through its Whiskey Club starting Thursday, October 30; the club is free to join, and the bottle is priced at $70. Chattanooga will release the first two of 11 Confluence Project single barrels on October 30 as well, exclusive to its Experimental Distillery and also priced at $70. As one barrel’s bottlings sell out, another barrel will be released.

The Confluence Project was seven years in the making, born out of a friendship between New Riff master distiller Brian Sprance and Chattanooga founder and chief product officer Grant McCracken. Each distilling team spent time at the other’s facility, learning about their individual approach to whiskey making along the way. The whiskey is being billed as “Volume 1,” pointing to future Confluence Project collaborations in the future.