Get To Know Us More
Meet the team responsible for bringing you Muddy River Carolina Rum. Discover how the oldest rum distillery in the Carolinas was started. Learn details about how the unique rum stills were built and how they function.
After renting 500 square feet of space in an old textile mill, we opened the first rum distillery in the Carolinas roughly 50 yards from the “muddy” Catawba River, which gave Muddy River Distillery its name. Soon, by working on the weekends, we were producing 35 bottles of rum a day in a still named Freedom that we built ourselves.
In 2015, North Carolina passed a law that enabled in distillery bottle sales. 1 bottle per person, per year. (We had to take name and drivers license # to sell a customer the 1 bottle.) This opened a new tourism aspect to the business, increasing sales and allowing the distillery to hire more employees.
We added our newest addition, a 450 gallon still named Independence. Muddy River Distillery was now able to distill 1,200 bottles per day and began to really stockpile barrels for long-term aging up to 20 years. Founders Caroline and Robbie Delaney were recognized as outstanding entrepreneurs with the Montcross Chamber's EPIC Award. EPIC stands for entrepreneurial, progressive, innovative and collaborative.
The Delaneys became a family of 3 having their son, Marty. We won 2 gold medals at the Miami Rum Fest (the largest rum festival in the world). We were also named “Distillery of the Year” at the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association’s Annual Chef Showdown (NC’s premiere culinary and mixology competition). Moreover, North Carolina raised bottle sale limits, allowing distilleries to sell up to 5 bottles per person per year. This more than doubled the in-distillery sales revenue. Muddy River Distillery launched Queen Charlotte’s Reserve 4-year Carolina Rum.
In 2019, North Carolina removed all restrictions for bottle sales doubling the annual tour sales again. Muddy River Distillery hired additional employees to keep up with our growing demand and guide tours. Muddy River entered the international market with exporting products to Canada.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, Muddy River Distillery pivoted its focus toward the community with sanitizer production. As the largest distillery in the area, our operation ran 7 days a week producing and bottling hand and surface sanitizer. At a time when sanitizer was hard to come by, Muddy River answered the call from local first responders and health care organizations to meet the immediate need donating nearly 1,000 gallons of sanitizer. Despite the pandemic, Muddy River was able to increase bottled rum sales by 20%.
In 2021, Muddy River Distillery entered its 10th year in business. We experienced a growth of over 30% in sales throughout the year. With increased demand, we grew our staff to support increased production and growing tour attendance. In addition, the company was selected to return to the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association’s Annual Chef Showdown to reclaim its title as “Distillery of the Year.” The Delaneys also welcomed another member to the family, Max. Bursting at the seams, Muddy River began the search for their forever home.
Muddy River has shown consistent, sustainable growth over the past 10+ years. We have kept our family-owned business debt free and grown our production from 35 bottles a day to 1,200. We started this business under strict state and federal regulations. Our current facility is a reflection of the past, acting primarily as a production facility. As a nationally recognized distillery, our vision for the future is to build a tourist destination that benefits the entire community.
INDEPENDENCE, DEMOCRACy, and LIBERTY
Democracy is a custom built hybrid reflux column still. We designed and built this machine in house and it takes a lot of the credit for why our products have such a unique taste. This still has 5 plates and distills to around 90% alcohol. The distillation process takes 1 long day and we collect only the best of the hearts for our products. Liberty is our 3rd production still at 200 gallons. Most of the build for this machine was completed in house. Independence is our 4th and largest still. With a 450 gallon capacity, Independence more than doubled our capacity.
LEARN MORE
We start by fermenting the best American ingredients. Once fermentation is complete, we distill in our custom built hybrid reflux column stills. Distillation takes a full day and produces around 300 bottles a day. Check out the videos below of our bottling process.
“By making contacts and watching, writing and talking rum, I have seen some of the distillers really explode. Muddy River is one of those.”
— Rick, The Rum Runner
Saturday Tours at 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 PM
Store Hours:
Monday - Wednesday: CLOSED
Thursday - Friday: 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Saturday 12:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Sunday: CLOSED
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