Florida’s Rum Revolution: St. Augustine Distillery Marries Flavor with History

There’s a rum revolution going on in St. Augustine, Florida and it’s proudly taking place in the coastal city’s historic Florida Power & Light Ice Plant. The beautiful building, dating back to 1907, now houses the St. Augustine Distillery, and what they’re doing with local, Florida agriculture in the form of hand crafted spirits is definitely sip-worthy.

When Phillip McDaniel and his wife decided it was time to do something with the space and revitalized the building in the city’s Lincolnville neighborhood, they didn’t realize the juggernaut they were launching. On top of the distillery sits another community-owned business, The Ice Plant Bar, and between the two enterprises, they’ve created over 100 jobs, restored the historic building, and are producing some of the best hand crafted, small batch rum and spirits in the state. [pagebreak]

Spirit Terroir

Wine has terroir and so do spirits. In northern Florida, the sugar cane, wheat, citrus, and corn are grown by local farmers for a “field to bottle” approach that’s unique to the region. One of the distillery’s key projects revolves around a Rum Discovery Series: four types of rum that were shared with the public and bartenders in the region, as they were ready, in real time. 

Head distiller Brendan Wheatley was given carta blanca on each batch of rum, with distillery employees, tasters, barkeeps, and even visiting tourists giving him feedback on their favorite distillations. “Everyone really liked the Discovery 3 rum and Brendan kept that in mind when crafting our flagship rum, called Pot Distilled Rum. He likens it to putting together a symphony –  different levels of sugar sources from either cane syrup or molasses interacting with different kinds of barrels to create the final masterpiece,” explains McDaniel. [pagebreak]

Bourbon Barrel Aged

The rum gets aged in the distillery’s own 53 gallon bourbon barrels (they’re the first to make bourbon in Florida on any scale) for one year. The Pot Distilled Rum uses a combination of Florida molasses, a byproduct of sugar making from plants in south Florida, and cane syrup from nearby Georgia. This is more akin to traditional rum-making as it’s made in the Caribbean and Latin America. [pagebreak]

Agricole and Heirloom Sugar Cane

Originally however, the idea was to grow heirloom sugar cane (red, green, tail ribbon, and chewing cane) nearby, says McDaniel, and then to harvest and juice it on the farm before sending it to the distillery for fermentation. They soon realized that the equipment needed to cut through the heirloom breeds of sugar cane was very expensiv, and the farmer contracted to grow the cane didn’t have the capital to purchase the equipment. After regrouping, they found a farmer in Odum, Georgia who is able to harvest and press the heirloom strains. They hope that in a couple of years, they’ll be able to cut and press the fresh cane juices (called agricole), in a style of rum making popularized in the French Caribbean (Martinique for example, is famous for it).

It’s quite possible that with St. Augustine’s historic, pirate-filled past, the city’s own distillery will be making Martinique or Haitian style “rhum” with a purely northern Florida twist and a whole lot of southern charm. Salud to that!