From Doubt to Devotion: How Hannah Lowen Rediscovered Kentucky’s Bourbon Heart
After swearing that she would never return to Kentucky, it was a handshake in a dog park that brought Hannah Lowen back.
Lowen was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, surrounded by horses, Bourbon culture, and friends who didn’t look like her. Both of her parents were New Yorkers who had relocated to Kentucky in the 1970s.
“As a child, I did not feel connected to Kentucky because I was so different than my friends and my neighbors because we were Jewish, we had dark curly hair” she explains. “All of my girlfriends from high school are like these beautiful blonde, you know, brilliant women, but I didn’t look like them.”
Beyond the physical differences were the cultural. Lowen’s family didn’t go to church. And as she grew up, her interests strayed from the horses, Bourbon, and all things Bluegrass that make up so many Kentucky events. When she graduated from high school she remembers telling people that she would never be moving back to Kentucky. She didn’t connect to the heritage…or the humidity.
However, Lowen would backtrack on that vow because the longer she was gone, the more she discovered her love for it. First in Wisconsin, then in Oregon, and later while traveling across Europe. With every new place she visited she couldn’t help but compare it to home, and she started constantly surprising herself that Louisville held its own. The foodie scene. The beauty. The Derby. The people and places that made Louisville as unique as any of the cities she spent time in.
In addition to a new appreciation for Kentucky’s culture, Lowen was also becoming a fierce supporter of the Bluegrass state. Too many misconceptions about her home, and the people she loved in it, led Lowen to start identifying as a Kentuckian.
“They always expected that we were rednecks,” she said. “And we were dumb and hillbillies. I mean, my college roommate asked if I wear shoes…for real. That was in the 2000s. And so I think in that, I started to be like, ‘no, Kentucky’s awesome.’”
It was also during this time that she first felt connected to an industry. From the microbreweries in Madison to the craft IPAs in her Portlandia days to the historic variety of beer across Europe, Lowen was growing to appreciate the smells, recipes, and innovation found in craft brewing. Thinking about what she was consuming, how it was made, and who made it was a gateway for her. Lowen loved that she could walk into a brewery off of the street, see the tanks, smell the ingredients, learn about their process, and taste the final product, a rare glimpse into how each variety is made.
And that gateway brings us to a dog park in Louisville, where Lowen met with an old family friend Ken Lewis, owner of The Party Source in Newport, Kentucky, the largest adult beverage superstore in the country.
During their conversation, Ken informed Lowen that he was selling The Party Source to his employees and that he and his daughter were opening a distillery in the same parking lot. Lewis further explained that he wanted Lowen on board.
In that dog park thirteen years ago, they shook on a deal that would see Lowen returning to Kentucky the following year, the one place she was certain she would never live again, to help create “New Riff,” the largest distillery in Northern Kentucky.
Since that handshake, New Riff has grown to be one of the most beloved distilleries in the country by not just winning awards for quality, but by living by their mantra of working to lift up their tiny corner of the world.
They have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to local causes, including over $140,000 during Covid that was distributed to local bartenders and servers who were impacted by the pandemic. They use their space to host community events such as this spring’s Queer Soup Night fundraiser. Each June they are a constant presence in the NKY Pride Parade while ignoring the larger Pride PR opportunities on the other side of the river.
“I think that creates a certain openness that you get to be like a reflection of your community. And I think for New Riff for a long time, it was just being a reflection of our team. We weren’t doing pride when it was in a parking lot that was flooded because we were trying to make a formal impression, it’s because there were queer people here.”
And in her personal life, Lowen has fallen back in love with Kentucky.
“People sleep on Northern Kentucky all the time.”, Lowen laments. “When we moved here, and I have to give tons of credit to Julia, she was like we need to live in Covington. And then we fell in love with it. There’s so much good food, drink, culture, people. It’s just in this tiny little place in the world. So there’s like great pride in kind of like finding this gem because we’re not from here.”
“I think the community is stronger. They fight above their weight.”
