DISTILLING AND ITS ON-PremISe PArTNerS Are HeLPING AN AreA BOuNCe BACK

Covington, Kentucky, is a small city that plays a big role. Home to some 40,000 people, the skinny, talon-shaped town isn’t exactly Louisville or Lexington. Yet its waterfront location just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati makes Covington and its neighboring communities the de facto gateway to bourbon country for those traveling by car from Ohio and other states bordering the Great Lakes. While a known commodity in the greater Cincinnati area, it’s a community that will surprise outsiders with its collection of craft distilleries and bourbon-centric bars and restaurants. It may even compel some visitors, intent on checking out the major brands deeper in the state, to stay and find out what’s happening here.

Hospitality is indeed Covington’s lifeblood, and bourbon is its DNA, whether the juice comes from local craft distilleries or unique and rare expressions of statewide behemoths poured at trusted on-premise accounts. However, this industry was particularly vulnerable during the pandemic, at least on paper. “It was such a scary time when everything was shut down,” explained Brad Wainscott, owner of Libby’s Southern Comfort in Covington. “We’re thankful that people were sympathetic and came up with creative ways to support the hospitality community.”

The gate has swung open once more. According to the convention and visitor’s bureau, MeetNKY, Covington and the surrounding northern Kentucky area have experienced an 11 percent growth in visitation from 2021 to 2022. There are also indications that the greater Covington area will eventually bounce back like a rubber ball in low gravity due to its hospitality ties — the very ties the pandemic threatened to sever. “There’s a lot of development happening around here now, so things are looking up,” said Matt Robinson, co-owner of Old Kentucky Bourbon Bar in Covington.

PrOGreSS THAT’S STILL IN PrOGreSS

Covington’s comeback wasn’t guaranteed even with their Kentucky location. Its recovery, while robust, is moving at a slower pace compared to the state’s bigger bourbon hubs. There are also some signs of stress amidst the growth. “Plenty of places haven’t fully bounced back,” said Jay Erisman, global brand ambassador for New Riff Distilling. “It takes a lot of resources to reopen, and some places have struggled with this. Part of it is trying to get customers in, but it’s also a matter of trying to hire employees.”

Even as the area grows, it’s understood that such expansion would have been better, given the pre-pandemic momentum they’d been enjoying since the region’s first craft distilleries and bourbon bars opened in the early 2010s. “Our recovery depends on how you view it,” explained Julie Kirkpatrick, CEO and president of MeetNKY. “If we’re comparing where we are now compared to where we were in 2019, we’re there. If you compare where we are to where we should be at this point without the pandemic, we’re getting there.”

Still, any wistful sentiments about what may have been tends to be supplanted by what may be in store. “I don’t think we’ve reached peak visitation,” Kirkpatrick said. “The double-digit growth demonstrates that we haven’t capped growth.”