Kill Devil Rum
Written By: Gail Clifford | Published By: Foodie Flashpacker | June 11, 2022
During our recent trip to the Outer Banks, we had the opportunity to meet with one of the co-owners, Matt Newsome, of Kill Devil Rum and tour the facility. With Covid restrictions, group tours of 40 and over people have been restricted but visitors to the store and bar can view the distillation operation through the window. We visited at the tail end of a nor’easter so missed the outside tables and large umbrella but sounds like it’d be great fun.
I live in Ireland so I’ve been to the Jamison Distillery, so one of my first questions was “Can you tell me how different it is for distilling rum versus whiskey?”
Matt replied, “So, we don’t use any kind of grain or anything. We use molasses so it remains gluten-free. That’s the big thing. Modern distillers still use the same three ingredients of sugar, water, and yeast, but each distiller has their own recipe to master the art of balance and blend.
We have a small batch called the Shipwreck Series. It comes out twice a year. I’m sold out of it here right now, but the idea behind that is we do these three (Gold, Silver, Pecan) all the time, so we have these in wide distribution. We do the shipwreck series to (one) be creative in the distillery and (2) be able to tie in our local history here.
We’re surrounded by all these shipwrecks, this is called the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” and that’s really how the rum arrived on our shores here. So we always dedicate every batch, spring, and fall, with a shipwreck story on the bottle describing the shipwreck and what makes that specific rum unique. This most recent one was made out of sugar and unrefined sugar in the raw from Costa Rica. The first year we used bourbon barrels. The second year, we used Norton red wine barrels.
That creativity is a passion of ours. We always want to create something new to do with rum. We’re very lucky to have a great fan base and a great customer base because we want to create something and provide something unique for everybody… and I’m a big history nerd so I get to talk about history all the time.”
His partner, co-owner Scott Smith, says, “We all live in Kill Devil Hills. A town named after rum, Kill Devil, was the first term used for the spirit during colonial days. Being on the Outer Banks, we are surrounded by thousands of shipwrecks from trade ships carrying barrels of rum on board, and when they wrecked on our shores, the barrels would wash up on the beaches. So locals began to collect these barrels and hide them in the hills. One of these hills became known as Big Kill Devil Hill, where the Wright Brothers made their first flight. Being immersed in the history, we wanted to see it come back to life.”
Gail Clifford
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