Review: Outer Banks Distillery Kill Devil Spiced Rum

We recently reviewed the white rum from Outer Banks Distilling, and it was a pretty darn good product. Some nice marshmallow flavors, tropical fruits, and even a bit of funk. It’s a great start, but it could be better — and the folks at Outer Banks Distillery seem to agree, because they’ve put out this spiced version of their rum that aims to kick things up a notch with the flavors.

History

The Outer Banks, a slender stretch of sand and history off the North Carolina coast, is home to many fantastic stories and historical events. Blackbeard, the famous pirate, spent a significant period of time here and even died in battle near Ocracoke Island in 1718. Shipwrecks too numerous to count dot the sands around these shores, giving the place its nickname “The Graveyard of the Atlantic”. The Wright Brothers had their first successful flight of a powered aircraft here in 1903. It was a hotbed of bootlegging during prohibition. And these days, it is an ideal vacation location with pristine white beaches, blue waters, and cool breezes.

Founded in 2015 by local brewers Adam Ball, Kelly Bray, Matt Newsome, and Scott Smith, the Outer Banks Distillery was intended to pay homage to that seafaring and pioneering tradition of the land — they wanted to focus on creating a hybrid approach of traditional methods with modern innovation to create spirits that were deliciously interesting. Together, the team found a brick building in Manteo on Roanoke Island (site of the famous Roanoke Colony, the first English settlement on the continent), fixed it up, and started making spirits.

Product

• Learn More: What Is Rum?

The name on Outer Banks Distillery’s line of rums isn’t just evocative, but it’s rightfully historical as well. Rum originated in the Caribbean, made from fermented local sugar cane and in the 1650’s was described as a drink so potent that it could “kill the devil” and was often simply referred to as “kill-devil”. The town of Kill Devil Hills in the Outer Banks is believed to have been named after this ancient term for rum, and Outer Banks Distillery embraces that history for their version of the spirit.

Rum is a spirit made from sugarcane — and since North Carolina isn’t exactly known for having a compatible climate for this crop, they use molasses shipped in from Louisiana to start their process.

Molasses is the leftover syrupy substance that’s typically discarded after the sugar production process is complete — raw sugarcane is pressed to express the sugary juice, which is then boiled in successive pans to remove moisture and concentrate the sugar into the powder that we see on store shelves. Each successive boiling produces continuously poorer quality sugar until finally it simply will no longer boil, and the mixture of impurities and leftover muck is molasses. The good news for distilleries is that molasses is dirt cheap and full of interesting flavors, which makes it perfect for producing rum.

The molasses is mixed with water and yeast and allowed to ferment, creating a mildly alcoholic liquid as the yeast eats the sugar and releases alcohol and other elements in return. Outer Banks Distilling uses a longer than normal fermentation process which allows for more time for the yeast to interact with the molasses, resulting in more complex flavors that develop after a few days.

Once properly fermented the liquid is distilled in Outer Banks Distilling’s hybrid pot and column still, which results in the raw white rum that is used for all their various versions of the spirit.

For their spiced rum, they add eleven different herbs and spices (the specifics of which are not disclosed) that are steeped in the rum, like a teabag in a cup of tea. This not only infuses the flavors of those components into the spirit but also adds some color to the liquid.

Packaging

In terms of the shape of the bottle, there’s nothing all that special going on. We’re looking at a straight walled, cylindrical body that rounds at the shoulder to a medium length neck, with a bulge in the neck for better control when pouring. The bottle is capped off with a wood stopper.

The nice touch is that the distillery logo is embossed into the glass itself, which takes a little time and effort from the manufacturer (and costs a little bit more as a result). It might seem like a small point, but this gives an indication that the distillery is really thinking about their products and how they want them to look and feel, and not just grabbing the cheapest, commercially available bottle off the shelf.

The label wraps all the way around, and the cut on the bottom is clean but the top of the label is ragged and gives the appearance of a ripped or weathered piece of paper. In colored ink on that wrapper is an illustration of a shipwreck complete with barrels floating away — an apt illustration for a distillery located in the heart of the “Graveyard of the Atlantic”. Each version of their rum has a different color for the illustration and the ink used for the brand information; in this case, the illustration is a light red color and the lettering ink is red metallic and reflective material, which matches nicely with the color of the rum.

Neat

The very first aroma I’m getting off the glass is cinnamon, with the addition of some cloves. This morphs into an aroma that can best be described as “warm oatmeal raisin cookies”: some brown sugar, butter, nutmeg, and vanilla. It’s delicious and inviting in all the best ways.

Interestingly, those elements seem to be a little muddled and unclear when tasted for the first time. It’s richer and more viscous than the white rum, but the only flavors I can really taste clearly are the cinnamon and nutmeg with a hint of vanilla. The aroma is still doing a lot of work to help fill in the gaps, but it isn’t quite as clear as before.

It’s giving me sasparilla, old fashioned root beer vibes.

On Ice

Just like we saw when we tried the white version of this spirit, the addition of a little bit of ice helps tremendously. Instead of being one jumbled mess of flavors, we get a clearer picture of what’s going on here.

First and most importantly, the tropical fruits are a much more prominent element of the flavor profile. I’m getting the banana and mango flavors coming through loud and clear, and the rest of the flavors seem to be playing around them. The cinnamon and nutmeg are still top of the charts for prominence, but it’s more of a coherent oatmeal raisin cookie now with the brown sugar, vanilla, clove, and other components.

It’s really good at this point. I think if this were barreled for a while and given some time to age, it could be a really good sipping spirit all on its own — but most importantly, it makes me excited to see how it performs in a cocktail.

Cocktail (Dark & Stormy)

Most people prefer a dark & stormy to use a dark rum as its spirit. Personally, I prefer something spiced — and this is a great illustration of why.

With a darker rum, the focus is only on balancing out the ginger beer and the lime juice. But with a spiced rum, you get the same kind of effect, only with more complexity and interesting flavors going on. Instead of being a rather flat cocktail, this comes to life and transforms into something that you could happily sip poolside during a long summer afternoon.

In this instance, it’s not just that the spices kick in and make things more interesting for one particular element, but instead that their prominence is spread throughout the flavor profile. Up front, the tropical fruits blend nicely with the ginger beer and lime juice, setting a very fruity and refreshing tone. Then the cinnamon and nutmeg join the party, adding some spicy elements and keeping the party going. On the finish, that hogo-like funk kicks in and adds some needed depth to the cocktail, which lasts well into the finish.

There’s balance, there’s complexity, there’s development… there’s a darn good drink here!

Overall Rating

This is, in my opinion, what a good spiced rum should taste like. There’s plenty of interesting flavors present from the spices, but it’s all accentuated and helped by the inherent fruity and delicious notes from the underlying base spirit. It’s a well constructed and delicious spirit that I’m absolutely happy to drink all summer long.

If there’s a gripe I have with this rum, it’s that they could have safely taken it further. Doing some barrel aging or additional fortification of the spiced flavors would have done wonders, and I sincerely hope that I can find an aged version of this sometime in the future.

All reviews are evaluated within the context of their specific spirit classification as specified above. Click here to check out similar spirits we have reviewed.

Overall Rating: 3.5/5
Like an oatmeal raisin cookie that you can also drink poolside in a great cocktail.