New Riff Distillery and Event Center

As one of the few free standing distilleries built in the last 50 years, The New Riff Distillery and Event Center strives to bring the craft of a heritage industry into the 21st century, combining entertainment with bourbon production.

Jeff Raser, lead architect for the project, met the Owner of the New Riff Distillery, Ken Lewis, during a planning effort for Bellevue, Kentucky. Lewis and his team had a vision for creating a new kind of place to experience the passion for whiskey and other distilled spirits. They wanted inspirational spaces that would elicit emotions of excitement, fun, and adventure in an authentic industrial yet high-tech environment.    

The facility is made of two distinct, but interwoven parts: a full craft distillery and a multi-space tourism and event center for over 300 people.

The event center has a demonstration kitchen “Doubler Room”, a large roof-top “Tower Room” with a roof deck, a tasting bar and retail center. All of these spaces are within view and reach of the distillery production spaces. The production distillery features a 60’ tall copper column still and a copper pot still in a glass still tower. The facility also has 6 fermenters, a grinding room, and a barreling room.

By definition, bourbon has no additives or artificial enhancements. This authenticity is mirrored in the selection and use of the building’s materials from unpainted concrete block walls and exposed steel structure to the rustic stone of the still tower and metal garage doors which open the rooftop event space to the roof deck. On the exterior, metal panels hint at the industrial nature of the building while extensive glass reveals the process. Anchoring it all is the still tower. Grounded by stone walls on two sides, the glass lantern rises above the roofline; a beacon announcing the art and spirit within.