- When you think the Outer Banks,
you automatically think rum.
The town of Kill Devil Hills gets its name from shipwrecks
coming along our coast carrying barrels of rum,
and they would wreck, and the barrels of rum
would wash ashore.
- [Rick] Back in the day, that rum was strong enough
to kill the devil, you might say, but here,
at Outer Banks Distilling, the modern Kill Devil rums
have the total recipe.
- [Matt] Everyone kind of waits for the burn,
and it never comes, so we're very proud of our silver rum.
We've kinda got it dialed in, perfecting our craft
with each batch.
- [Rick] Outer Banks Distilling opened for business
with batch number one in May of 2015.
Four friends who met while working at a local brewery
broke ranks with beer, gutted and repurposed
an historic Manteo building, and busted out their new
and tasty idea.
- [Scott] It is fairly new.
The whole distillation industry in North Carolina
is starting to really pick up.
I think there's about 35 or 40 of us right now,
and that's great.
There is more power in numbers,
but people are really embracing this.
People who go after the craftier wine, craftier beer
are now going after that with their spirits,
and we've really seen that with all the local restaurants
really carrying us, supporting us.
- [Rick] And spreading the news, but these four buddies,
Adam Ball, Scott Smith, Matt Newsome, and Kelly Bray
did not anticipate just how quickly
their Kill Devil Rum would sell.
Out-of-towners cannot get enough of it.
- We're only available in North Carolina right now.
We have not gotten out of the state,
'cause, as much as we make, it's selling in North Carolina.
It's a great problem to have, but we're gonna be
doing an expansion project this Fall
so we can get into Virginia, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Maryland, all those states, but right now--
- [Rick] The team had done its homework
with distillation studies at Michigan State University,
further training from the manufacturers of their equipment,
and, now, they've backed it up with the continued
quality analysis that each serving provides.
They like the way things are going
and how their equal partnership and friendship
has held up through the startup.
- We have liquor.
It works out really good.
At the end of the day, we solve all of our problems
the old fashioned way.
- [Rick] Daily tours of the Outer Banks Distilling property
give visitors a chance to hear some history,
learn some of the basics of the processes,
and to sample the product.
- Absolutely, we do two tours a day, and that brings in
a lot of tourism.
We do anywhere between 30 to 50 people per tour per day
at one o'clock and three o'clock.
They range from, we've had,
about 10 different foreign countries.
Probably about 30 or 40 states have been in here.
- I think it's a really nice idea.
They have a lot of beer breweries here,
but you don't see any distilleries, and it fits right in
with the pirate lore of the area.
It's pretty neat.
It's neat that four young men started a business
on their own and are doing something really unique
to this area.
- It's been, by the locals who have been reading about it,
been widely anticipated.
- [Rick] Here's what you need to know about rum.
- To be called rum, it has to be sugar cane
or sugar cane byproduct, so we use molasses.
The molasses comes from Louisiana,
and that is the byproduct.
Molasses is the byproduct of sugar cane juice
being cooked into sugar cane crystals.
We wanna highlight that raw ingredient,
and, with the silver rum, you can't hide anything in that.
You can't hide any off flavors.
When you make a good silver rum,
it has to be absolutely perfect.
What's great about it is you taste the purity of the spirit.
- [Rick] What's the favorite part of the tour for them?
What's the favorite part of the tour for you?
- Drinking rum on both sides.
I think both people really like that part,
especially once they learn how it's really made,
and they actually see the guys back there sweating
making this product that everyone loves.
- [Rick] At Outer Banks Distilling in Manteo,
the home of Kill Devil Rum's silver
and with honey and pecans, I'm Rick Sullivan
for North Carolina Weekend.
- Outer Banks Distilling is located at 510 Budleigh Street
in downtown Manteo.
It's open from nine to five Tuesday through Saturday.
Tours are available on each of those days at one
and three P.M.
Call ahead to reserve a spot at 252-423-3011,
and you can find out more about the distillery
and Kill Devil Rum by going
to their website, outerbanksdistilling.com.