Rum-tastic Idea!
Back in 2020 when that crazy ‘ol pandemic hit, we had a lot of time on our hands. A lot. So did you too, I’m guessing, so you don’t need me to tell you how much time we had on our hands! And like so many other folks out there, we were looking to fill our time with something meaningful other than Netflix and Hulu.
So cocktails, right?!?
Clyde, if you don’t know, is a regular MacGyver-type who always tinkers with what he has on hand to fix things or re-engineer an item to do something different. So during 2020, he started looking into how he could turn the beer brewing equipment we owned into a still. As it turned out, he had everything he needed here and simply had to rearrange a few tanks and pipes to be able to distill.
A test run was in order! As it turned out, we had a small bucket of Concord juice concentrate that had been in the cellar too long, so Clyde went ahead and fermented it, then distilled it. We ended up with around a case of brandy that was pretty strong stuff.
That trial only whetted Clyde’s whistle, so from there he dug in to really understand distillations. We determined that the most economical distillate to produce quickly would be rum, so more small test runs were made. (Side note: testing rum is a whole new skill for me due to the high alcohol level and relative inexperience with spirits.)
We ended up liking rum made from whole cane sugar using a single pass through the still. Caramel notes make it into the finished rum that taste lovely on their own, or mix into a tiki cocktail delicously.
After receiving a license to distill legally, we have stuck with that formula for our base rum that we named Hill Dew to pay tribute to our Ozark foothills. Then we use the Hill Dew to infuse for our flavored rum (soon to be rums). The first flavored rum was of course a rum spiced with vanilla, cinnamon, clove, and allspice that we call Yule Dew. And you better believe the puns and jokes ensued over the phrase, “Hill Dew for now, but Yule Dew later.”
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this story about the beginnings of our rum production days. Come back for more stories, information, and fun here on the blog. Cheers!
