Review #797 - New Riff High Note 6 Year Wheat Whiskey (Confluence Project Vol. 1)

New Riff's 'High Note' series is a line of experimental, one-time release whiskies. Twice each year they release a new bottling, often with a focus on an unusual mashbill or extended maturation. There have been bourbon releases, rye releases, and then in the autumn of 2025, they released this 6 year old wheat whisky.

Wheat whisky saw a huge resurgence in 2024 and 2025; many brands released new bottles of this variety, including a couple of notable expressions such as Maker's Mark's Star Hill Farm and Heaven Hill's 19 year old Heritage Collection Wheat Whiskey. The fact that there have been varying ages of wheat whisky now released from these different brands shows that production of this style has been popular for a number of years, with plenty of wheat whisky likely still maturing in warehouses around the country, waiting for future release.

New Riff's 2025 release is also the first in their new Confluence Project, a multi-year collaboration they're doing with Chattanooga Whiskey in Tennessee. The term confluence refers to the merging of two rivers; likewise, this project brings together two distilleries, situated on two different rivers - each distillery has its own unique production and maturation methods.

The project began in 2019, when the two distilleries came together to make this wheat whisky. They created the mash for this whisky as one team, using a 100% wheat mashbill; however, these grains were broken down into 60% Red Turkey Wheat (a New Riff staple), 24% Appalachian Malted Wheat, 8% Dark Malted Wheat, and 8% Caramel Malted Wheat.

After that, each brand took half of the mash back to their own distillery, and that's where the processes diverged: each distillery used their own yeast for fermentation, their own stills for distillation, and their own barrel specifications for aging. This creates a unique opportunity to really taste the differences between the production methods from two distilleries. The barrels were aged for 6 years, and at the end, each distillery bottled them as single barrels.

These wheat whiskies are also bottled at cask strength; for the New Riff side, that strength fell between 116.9 proof and 122.8 proof, and our specific bottle comes with a strength of 122.8 proof (61.4% ABV), at the high end of the range. Like all New Riff whiskies, this is not chill filtered, and this limited release came with the reasonable price of $70.

New Riff High Note 6 Year Wheat Whiskey (Confluence Project Vol. 1)

USA - Wheat

Price: USD 70 (2025)

Age Statement: 6 Years

Strength: 61.4% ABV

Details: Not chill filtered; distilled 2019, bottled 2025

Tasting Methodology: Reviewed 3 times over 3 months; bottles at 100%, 90%, and 80% (blind tasting) fill levels at times of review. Tasted in a nosing glass each time, rested 15+ minutes

Nose: Bright and sweet, with vanilla, cotton candy, candied cherries - a lot of red fruit. Brown sugar and nutmeg build along with cinnamon, and we get a whiff of tobacco in the background. Oak grows stronger, too - wood polish, a bit of licorice spice, and sweet old oak.

Palate: The mouthfeel is medium-thick. It's quite spicy up front, with peppery oak, a bit of anise and black pepper; then we get vanilla, sugary oatmeal, brown sugar, and light bright fruit, which add a balancing sweetness. Licorice, cherry wood, and a touch of dark chocolate are accents; with time, the oak builds, bringing leathery notes.

Finish: Spicy and leathery oak, warming, with softer flavors of strawberries and cream in the background. Hints of cherry, cotton candy, and a bit of grain funk popped up too, and we get cinnamon and more starchy oak in the aftertaste. It's a medium-long finish.

Final Note: Wheat whisky is admittedly not one of our go-to categories when we're drinking whisky, but this example from New Riff is quite good. This packs a punch and a lot of flavor, and while it felt a bit sweet or a bit spicy at times, we found it had good balance overall. Nice bright fruit notes, lots of sugary flavors, and there's just a hint of that dank, grainy funk that you sometimes get with wheat whiskies; we also thought this had a strong oak influence for its age, something we see quite often with New Riff whiskies in general. If we were given this pour blind, we would guess it was quite a bit older than 6 years.

Value here is very good; New Riff essentially always has very fair pricing on their bottles, including their limited releases. This bottle is one of the better wheat whiskies that we've tried, and we think it's a great buy at $70; because of our confidence in New Riff's quality, we'll continue to buy their High Note/Whiskey Club releases going forward.

Our Rating: 7.3 / 10

In the current whisky landscape of increasing prices and variable quality, we've added a value rating to our reviews that relates to the score and the available pricing of each whisky. This roughly equates to a 0-10 scale; no reviews so far have exceeded a score of 10, although it is technically possible for the formula to produce a value rating higher than 10 with a high enough score and low enough price.

Value Rating: 7.04

About Us: We're a husband and wife review team living in the Midwest United States. Generally, our reviews and tasting notes will be a compilation of both of our experiences with a whisky over several tasting sessions.