About
Newport, Kentucky distillery founded by Ken Lewis (former owner of The Party Source, one of America's largest liquor stores). Committed to bottled-in-bond, no chill-filtering, no added color. Produces bourbon, rye, and Kentucky wild gin. Rapidly earned critical acclaim.
Production Details
The New Riff Tale
Where the Licking River surrenders to the Ohio, where Kentucky soil meets the Cincinnati skyline across the water, Ken Lewis built something different in 2014. The former owner of The Party Source—one of America's largest liquor stores—had spent decades watching whiskey flow through his hands. Now he wanted to make it.
Newport, Kentucky sits in Campbell County, a place where limestone runs deep and the Ohio River Valley's ancient geology shapes everything that grows. Lewis drew his water from wells that tap into this limestone foundation, the same mineral-rich aquifer that has blessed Kentucky distillers for generations. But New Riff would not be bound by all the old ways.
The distillery rose in a region thick with bourbon history, yet Lewis charted a deliberate course toward transparency. No chill-filtering. No added color. Bottled-in-bond became not just a standard but a philosophy—proof and age declared honestly, the whiskey speaking for itself. In an industry often clouded by marketing mystique, New Riff chose clarity.
The copper stills began their work making bourbon and rye, but also Kentucky wild gin—a nod to the botanical abundance of the Ohio River Valley and the American tradition of making whatever the land and market demanded. This was frontier pragmatism dressed in modern precision.
The limestone water that flows beneath Campbell County carries the memory of ancient seas, filtering through rock laid down when Kentucky was ocean floor. Each drop that enters New Riff's mash carries this geological inheritance, the mineral signature that has made the region synonymous with fine whiskey.
Within a few short years, the distillery earned something that cannot be bought or rushed: critical acclaim. The whiskey world took notice of what was happening in Newport, where the Ohio River bends and the limestone runs true.
Standing in the stillhouse today, you can feel the weight of both tradition and rebellion. The equipment hums with purpose, the limestone water flows, and somewhere in the aging warehouses, tomorrow's reputation rests in charred oak. Ken Lewis built New Riff not just to make whiskey, but to prove that American distilling's next chapter could honor the past while writing its own rules.