NEWPORT, Ky. — Standing in a warehouse that can hold 18,000 barrels of whiskey, I ask Michael Massey if he’s a bourbon guy. In retrospect, it seems like a dumb question.
“It’s taken over my life,” Massey said.
Massey is the lead single barrel ambassador at New Riff Distilling in Newport. Some barrels have been stored here for almost 12 years. We’re at what he calls the company’s west campus, where the final product is bottled in another nearby building.
“This is where the magic happens,” Massey said.
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I’m here to talk to him about a new malted rye single-barrel whiskey. It’s the first time the distillery has done a single-barrel version of it.
“Oh brother, I could blab for two hours,” Massey said. “I absolutely love the nuance and differences that you get with a single barrel.”
But I’m also here to talk about the bourbon industry. Because recent headlines include a production pause at Jim Beam, possible foreclosure of another brand in Kentucky and continued sales declines across the country.
“I don't see it as doom and gloom. I see it as normalization,” Massey said, after a boom during the COVID-19 pandemic. “There are some headwinds that we are having to face, but I’m very very thankful that I work for a small, local, family-owned company.”
A few minutes away at the distillery's headquarters, where the bottling operation used to be, Catherine Manabat sticks her finger in a fermentation tank.
“You can feel the heat coming off of it,” Manabat said. “This one’s like a hot tub."
Manabat is often smiling while leading me on a tour of the production floor. She's the hospitality director for New Riff, and she tells me their products are now sold in all 50 states. Something that happened just last year, despite declining sales nationwide.
“I look at the bourbon industry and I see resilience,” Manabat said. “We’re all feeling it. But I think that camaraderie and community is more important than ever.”
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It's why she keeps smiling.
"I think it's whiskey time," Manabat said.
