The distillery sits on a 15 plus acre farm parcel that offers room for even more growth. “We’ve got a 6000-bushel corn bin on the property and another 1500 bushel bin. We could start growing grains again back on the farm to sell to distilleries all over North Carolina. I’m really wanting to start bringing in beef cattle and feeding the cattle our grain and mash. After the COVID ordeal, people are getting back into buying cows and pigs whole and having them butchered, after seeing the shortages of meat in the grocery stores.” The distillery offers the ONW Carolina Whiskey, made from the family’s pre-prohibition recipe, and the Straight Bourbon Whiskey, aged for at least 2 years. The Coattail Cinnamon Whiskey was named in reaction to all the legal and other battles it took to get the distillery up and running in business and “for all the people who you feel are always riding on your coattails.” Jamerican Rum is another distillery favorite. “The Jamerican line is dear to my heart. My fiance and I both went through divorces. We spent our very first vacation together out of the country in Jamaica and I fell in love with the rum there. The first thing we did was tour the Appleton distillery because that’s what I do when I go on vacation. We fell in love with the people of Jamaica and the island and started traveling back and forth 2-3 times a year. When you’ve been there that many times, they start calling you a Jamerican. I thought the name was great and I came home and trademarked it and we developed our rum line. The Jamerican Rum is “island inspired but made here in America.” “Our still is a baby replica of what you find in the big distilleries in Jamaica and it allows us to make that very rich, heavy, high body rum that you typ- ically see from Jamaica. We do a white version that’s 80 proof. We do a white overproof version that’s 126 proof. Then we do our aged version and we’re currently working on a spiced recipe.”
The distillery uses the same traditional pot still method to make both the rum and whiskey. “They basically use two thumpers. In Jamaica, they’re called retorts and in redneck whiskey making or moonshine, they’re called thumpers.” The spirits are handcrafted, and family made. “We do everything at our facility by hand. We are zero automation. Our mill will mill about 300 pounds an hour and 1200 pounds of grain go into every one of our mashes. So that’s the amount of time we spend together making sure the product is finished properly. It’s filtered, not chill filtered, but sediment filtered to get out any impurities. And then all the bottles are filled basically by hand. They’re corked by hand with a machine that my dad made. The labels are put on by hand with every one of us standing there taking part.” “We want to be that bottle of whiskey you take to your family at Christmas and tell the story and the rich history of the family and the brand. I want people to feel that camaraderie when they’re drinking our product – that feeling that you’re at home.”
“We do everything at our facility by hand. We are zero automation.”
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DECEMBER 2020 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2020
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