We can’t forget about the people of Whitesburg
photos by Samuel Greenhill
The spirit, fight, and resilience of Michele Hobbs.
Nothing that I describe to you, from her nonstop energy to her multiple successful businesses to the Bourbon that we initially intended to speak about, sums Michele Hobbs up better than her insistence on turning all conversations to the people of Whitesburg, Kentucky.
So let’s start with Whitesburg. Located in Letcher County and right on the Kentucky/Virginia border, Whitesburg is the home of 2,321 working-class and working-poor Kentuckians. It’s the place where Michele spent a large part of her childhood running around outdoors, fishing, and learning what community is all about. And if you look at Michele’s life now, it’s still filled with a lot of running around outdoors, fishing, and showing others what community is about.
Now living in Cincinnati, Michele returns to Whitesburg regularly to take her young kids fishing in the same waters that she grew up in. After the 2022 flooding that decimated parts of Whitesburg, it’s a place that she’s returned to time and time again with food, supplies, and an army of community behind her.
When news of the flooding broke, Michele didn’t ask what she could do. She just did it. “The flood happened overnight July 27th. In Letcher County, where I call home, my family was inline with a direct hit in the floods. We turned to friends, businesses and strangers to bring attention and help to the people of Letcher County. Although the path of destruction ran from before Jackson and through Whitesburg, we chose to focus on Letcher County, specifically, Isom and Blackey. This is where I have family, and had people I could trust, whom I could work directly with, therefore getting aid in immediately.”
Using her own network and resources to provide immediate aid, Michele started fundraising for the region, ultimately raising over $5500 in just five days. Money that funded essentials, including the purchase of 60 charcoal grills complete with charcoal for each grill, as well as a truck that helped haul it all to a temporary warehouse. Michele worked with NKY State Representative Rachel Roberts to get power to that building, a building that is still being used to this day.
During those first few days, Michele’s friend Suzy DeYoung, founder of La Soupe, a Cincinnati-based nonprofit dedicated to fighting food insecurity and waste, had been in contact with her friends at the World Central Kitchen. In only three days, they were set up in the IGA parking lot in Isom, Kentucky, cooking meals for thousands each day and teaching others in the community how to replicate their efforts. Michele recalls, “LaSoupe began making multiple trips a week to Letcher County with hundreds of meals, donating to pantries, schools and families. Suzy built a coalition of friends to help, and soon she was teaching the folks at the CANE Kitchen in Whitesburg how to feed hundreds of people out of the little volunteer kitchen… They were feeding 2000 people 3 meals a day!”
With their needs outgrowing the 60 grills they brought down, Michele knew they needed to work fast to scale their grassroots operation. A few days later, 504 more grills, a semi-truck of charcoal, and pallets of cleaning supplies came pouring in thanks to partnerships with regional corporations. The months that followed included rebuilding efforts within the community, as well as additional fundraising events, including an all day festival called “Hope for the Hills” that raised $22,000 for the area and was held at Michele’s very own OTR Stillhouse at Knox Joseph Distillery.
The OTR Stillhouse, located in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati, was opened to the public in 2021 and serves as the home of Knox Joseph Distillery, the creator of award-winning Bourbon, blended whiskies, and gins. When Michele decided to purchase the giant building at 2017 Branch Street, and the previous home of the Standard Ice Manufacturing Company, it was intended to be a warehouse for her quickly scaling pet food brand Pet Wants. A lifelong hustler, entrepreneur, and expert of identifying industry needs, Pet Wants launched as pet food store catering to the growing demand for high-quality, allergy-friendly pet food. From its humble beginnings tabling at events and growing to a single brick and mortar within Cincinnati’s legendary Finley Market, Pet Wants exploded into a nationally known brand with over a hundred franchises, making Michele one of the few LGBTQ+ and female entrepreneurs receiving national attention for her work.
Never one to shy away from identifying an opportunity, those plans changed when Michele discovered the aquifer of fresh, clean water that ran below the building, a discovery that caused her to pivot toward her lifelong dream of owning a Bourbon distillery. Almost a decade later, Michele now runs one of the few LGBTQ+ and female-owned distilleries in the country: A sprawling venue where Michele’s commitment to family and community can take on a life of its own. Supported by her wife Amanda, she has created a space designed to serve as a community hub, fueled by a desire to create an environment so welcoming and inclusive that it has the power to pull people out of their caves and into community. Fundraisers, concerts, and Pride markets happen regularly here, as do special one-time events like a screening of the Indigo Girls documentary and a private gathering of local leaders, bartenders, and business owners focused on creating an emergency response system for the LGBTQ+ community.
Living in a world still finding its footing since the height of the pandemic, Michele’s story is a reminder of the power of human connection, the importance of community engagement, and the resilience of the entrepreneurial spirit. And the eternal truth that Kentucky stays with you forever.