New Riff

Its water comes from a private well drilled 100 feet down, and it is rich with limestone, which makes it very hard.^3,4 Each batch ferments for four days in the open, and by 2024 it had 9 fermenters.^2,3 It follows what it calls the Kentucky Regimen: sour mash, open fermentation, copper column distillation and a doubler.^4,7 The column beer still, 60ft tall with 19 plates, distils the fermented mash on the grain, and the doubler distils it a second time.^3,4,7 It distils, ages and bottles all of its own spirits.¹ Across all its whiskeys, it mashes about 25% more rye than corn, which Whisky Magazine called very unusual in Kentucky.^3,7

A whiskey campus in west Newport, planned to hold more than 18,000 barrels, was set to open to the public in 2018.^8,10,11 Today its West Newport Campus has a rickhouse, a building for storing and ageing spirits, and a bottling hall.^8,10,11 A 2021 expansion added three fermenters and raised output by 50% to 12,000 barrels a year.^4,9,12 With Newport nearly full, it built a 55,000-square-foot barrel warehouse on 10 acres in Silver Grove in 2023, which holds up to 40,000 barrels.^4,9,13 Its barrels age across three warehouses.²

In January 2024 Brian Sprance was named its first master distiller.^2,5 When Ken Lewis retired, Hannah Lowen became chief executive, his daughter Mollie Lewis became president, and Denny Gorman became chief operating officer.^5,6