Busy Week in North Carolina
Friends of ours invited us to their Time Share last week to Kitty Hawk NC. Got down there Monday just as tropical storm Ana was departing the area, I planned that well. We got some storm squalls and wind the remainder of Monday evening but the rest of the week was sunny and cool until Saturday as we were leaving. We ate at some very good restaurants and pubs, did a little more site seeing and tested the ocean. 69 degree Ocean temps relegated us to the shallow end of the unheated outdoor pool. We took a side trip to Manteo NC all of about 20 min. from where we were camped and visited the sites including a distillery that had just been opened this past January. The distillery was started by 4 guys and the only product that they have made is a clear rum or light rum. They will be starting a gold and dark rum production sometime in the next 6 – 8 weeks. There are plans to produce a Pecan infused rum and special holiday rum. Sales seem to be good so far because the NC State ABC stores in the vicinity have not been able to keep the product on the shelf. The license for the rum is in NC only so it is not being shipped out of state as of this time. The name of the rum is, Kill Devil Rum and there is a story behind the name.
The name Kill Devil Hills dates back to the colonial era. Shipwrecks were common at the time, and many of the ships were transporting barrels of rum. When a ship foundered, local wreckers would scavenge what they could of the ship's cargo before it sank, hiding their pilfered rum behind, and sometimes in, the same large sand dunes where the Wright Brothers would later perform glider tests, before flying their first plane from level ground nearby. Since rum was called "Kill Devil," by the English, at the time, the dunes became known as "Kill Devil Hills.
It takes about 9 hours to distill and fill 1 barrel, it is then aged in a used Jim Beam wooden cask for 30 days then bottled and shipped.
http://outerbanksdistilling.com/about-us/ All of the distilleries raw materials are American products and 99 percent of their waste is recycled. The friends who we were staying with had heard all about the distillery from 1 of the owners fathers, a barber, and kept telling our friend how good it was and how well the partners were progressing.
I’m not really a rum drinker and I got a taster at the distillery and it was okay. Our friends brought 3 bottles and he was enjoying his rum and coke with a lime. So, I just wanted let folks traveling in and around NC and the Outer Banks, you might want to see and taste a product made in America , by ambitious Americans, with ingredients from America.
Chief Mac