Ken Lewis

The Path

The NKY Community Award in 2023 sits alongside a career built around construction, oversight, and planned succession. At New Riff Distilling in Newport, United States, Ken Lewis served as founder, co-owner, and Chief Executive Officer from 2014–2024, with the work shaped by continuity rather than personal permanence. “We’ve got a great team that’s a younger team already taking the reins. That’s the way I’ve wanted to do it,” he said. Before spirits, the discipline was classroom-based. Ken Lewis began as a high school English teacher, a role that depends on patience, structure, and reading the room well. He then moved into retail and spirits as founder and owner at Liquor Outlet / The Party Source, where commercial judgment and consumer timing mattered as much as product knowledge. The sequence — teacher, retailer, spirits operator — shows a career built on listening, building, and knowing when demand and opportunity meet. From 2014–2024, he helped shape New Riff Distilling in Newport, Kentucky as founder, co-owner, and Chief Executive Officer. Over that decade, the company was not just run; it was formed with future leadership in mind. The approach was to make succession part of the structure, not an afterthought. Since 2024, he has remained close to New Riff Distilling in Newport, Kentucky as a board member, and today he is its Operating Owner. The title changed, but the relationship did not break: the work stayed linked to the company, while room opened for others to take more of the lead.

The Work Today

“I wanted to make sure that unlike most people, I exit as well as I enter,” Ken Lewis said, and the line describes a practical style of leadership. The emphasis is on stewardship, on knowing when to step forward and when to step back, and on making space for a younger team to carry more of the load. “From the beginning, New Riff has been about innovation — about trying new things, about growing and exploring what we could do in the whiskey space.” In that framing, the distillery’s identity is set by movement and testing, while still staying anchored to its own purpose and category.

In Their Words “From the beginning, New Riff has been about innovation — about trying new things, about growing and exploring what we could do in the whiskey space.” “I wanted to make sure that unlike most people, I exit as well as I enter.”

Acclaim

Ken's honors include Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame Parker Beam Lifetime Achievement Award. The award recognizes the scale of what he helped build and the method behind it: attention to craft, forward planning, and a leadership style that makes room for the next team to take over.