Kenneth “Ken” Alan Lewis
“The Accidental Entrepreneur”
Kenneth “Ken” Alan Lewis was bon in October 1950 in Louisville, Kentucky to Martin and Ginger Lewis. Ken has 2 children, Mollie and Greg. Mollie is now the Trade Sales Director of New Riff after a 10 year career in Italian wine sales. Greg is retired Navy and is now studying to become an RN for his next career.
Ken’s father Martin served in WWII and after the war was in military surplus and then moved into stores that were a predecessor to discount stores that we know today. Martin’s stores were a chain known as CSC.
Ken’s educational background includes public schools in Louisville, a BA with highest honors in English at the University of Michigan and MAT (Masters with a teaching certificate) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
After college he taught high school English in Detroit, Michigan for 2 years when he became an “accidental entrepreneur” when his father Martin asked him to run a family owned liquor store next to one of his discount stores in Louisville. After a year he found that he really enjoyed the work and kept expanding, eventually leading him to expanding to 6 stores, 5 in Louisville and 1 in Newport, Kentucky, The Party Source. As he expanded in 1994 he was having difficulty managing his 350 employee operation and was tired of dealing with the debt and challenges. He eventually sold 5 of the 6 stores, all of the stores in Louisville, which 3 of became Liquor Barn stores after the sale. He retained the 1 store in Newport. After the sale he was not happy with how some of the employees were treated, which would carry forward later.
After the sale in 2002 he was rejuvenated and took up mountain climbing and in 2007 summited Denali.
The Newport Party Source is a massive 80,000 square foot destination liquor store that is a thriving $40 million business. During this time Ken was living debt free.
Eventually however, he again grew tired of running a retail store and looked to make another change. He felt burnt out with the intense pressures of retail buying. He wasn’t ready to retire however, so he began discussing options with his fine spirits manager Jay Erisman, and eventually they came up with the plan to start a distillery as they knew the whiskey business was rapidly growing based on sales at The Party Source.
They decided to build the distillery on the site of The Party Source, and Ken sold the last remaining Party Source store to the employees with it becoming a ESOP. The original plan was for Ken’s daughter Mollie to own New Riff while he would retain The Party Source, but the liquor control board would not allow it. So Ken sold the store to it’s employees and he would move forward with his plan to start the New Riff Distillery. To Ken, life is about much more than money, so he is very proud to have the store now owned by its employees and has regularly stated that he wants to be there to present 6 figure retirement checks to the employees. He wants to support the team that spent their time working pay check to pay check. He called sales of the stores as “jumping off the capitalist express train.”
Ken also owned and operated a brewery inside The Party Source which opened in late 2013 called Ei8ht Ball Brewing. It was decided to close the brewery in 2017 to focus on New Riff.
Ken’s mission with New Riff as he has said a number of times is “to become on of the great small distilleries in the world.” Their mission is centered around their employees starting by hiring great people and who fit into their culture and want to be part of it. This brings out the best in those people. The company mantra is “Give our employees a clear mission, provide the best tools for the job and get the hell out of their way.”
New Riff is very proud to be fiercely independent and owned by one family. This gives them freedom from outside pressures and interests and allow them to focus entirely on quality. They distill to a lower proof to keep more flavor in their distillate, they go into the barrel at a low proof again to extract more flavor from the barrel. They pay more for extra open air dried stave barrels that are more expensive, but for New Riff it is all about producing the highest quality products they are able to. They also do not chill filter in another move to deliver a product with more flavor and mouthfeel.
New Riff is proud to be a “Rye House”, with rye as predominant component in their bourbon and of high rye content ryes. They believe that rye is the driver for very rich and complex bourbons.
Ken and his team at New Riff appreciate that trends and taste profiles have shifted to bigger bolder flavors. They reached out and worked with a master distiller consultant and according to Jay Erisman “was none other than the high priest of high rye, arguably the greatest rye distiller in modern times and, in the words of Jim Rutledge, “the best master distiller alive.”” This master distiller was none other than Larry Ebersold.
Ken considers Larry to be their founding father. So along with the excellent limestone filtered and plentiful water source at a constant cool temperature year-round that was an extremely fortunate find right under the property of the New Riff distillery next to the Party Source. They also worked with the best master distiller who helped Jay, Ken and the team constructed the New Riff distillery. Their motto is “quality at every turn” and he has stated “we’re going to stay independent.”
New Riff first used a mash bill of 75% corn, 20% rye and 5% malted barley suggested by Larry which he used at Seagram’s, later LDI, and later MGP. Jay felt this was a good starting point, but then went to a 30% rye mash bill and felt that was very good and have used that since. Their rye mash bill is 95% rye and 5% malted barely based on Larry’s legendary recipe, except of course for their 100% malted rye brand.
Ken has spend nearly his entire career, now almost 50 years, in beverage alcohol, working 38 years in retail liquor stores in Kentucky before starting New Riff. It will be exciting to continue to follow New Riff in their goal of “becoming one of the great small distilleries in the world.”
Contributed by Daniel Snyder, Whiskey Founders Committee Chair, Champaign, Illinois
New Riff Bourbon Line
New Riff Bottled In Bond Bourbon, Single Barrel Bourbon, Red Turkey Wheat Bourbon, Malster Bourbon, Backsetter Bourbon And Winter Whiskey Bourbon
New Riff Rye Whiskey Line
New Riff Bottled In Bond Rye, Single Barrel Rye, 100% Malted Rye, Balboa Rye And Backsetter Rye
Contributed by Daniel Snyder, Whiskey Founders Committee Chair, Champaign, Illinois