rich. delicious. flavorful.

Hilton Head Distillery Crafts Authentic Rum Cocktails

Written by Jessica Farthing | Photos by Rob Kaufman

Hilton Head Distillery got its start in Greenville, S.C., as the Dark Corner, opening a sister spot on Hilton Head Island.

Though the original business was focused on whiskey, it seemed logical for Hilton Head’s tropical weather and beachy vibes to offer alcohol with a tiki flair. When the distillery hired Whitney Meriwether as a master distiller, the idea of focusing on rum was perfected.

Meriwether moved to Hilton Head in 2020 from his distiller position in Seattle, looking for a life change and sunny weather. For the last few years he worked to learn what the distillery offered and enhance the products. The idea was to change the business focus to an American rum house, drawing on the Caribbean methods of rum creation.

He focused on pure ingredients to an extreme rarely seen in distilling. There are no prepared flavors in the rums offered on the menu. The Toasted Coconut Rum is made from coconuts that were toasted and added to the distilling process.

The Dark Pineapple Rum is made when pineapples are cooked on charcoal grills, then added when the alcohol is in the barrel at a high proof. This allows the fruit flavors to be extracted into the rum while it ages.

The team spent the last few years creating natural rum flavors under the creative direction of Meriwether, who moved from distiller to general manager in 2022.

“Everything you see now on our menu is either Whitney’s original product or his reinvented interpretation of a product that we had previously,” said Michelle Swanson, Director of Operations and Marketing.

The menu inspired thoughts of sunshine and sandy toes. There were tastes of bananas, spices, cream from a local farm and coffee flavors from the Lowcountry’s own Corner Perk. When Meriwether found locally grown and dried chilis at a Hilton Head bodega, he bought them to add to the Mexican Chocolate Cake Rum, a palate pleaser that combined the flavors of cocoa nibs, milk chocolate, cream, cinnamon with a little heat.

Swanson’s personal favorite on the menu is the Solera Rum, aged for seven years in a series of port wine and bourbon casks using the largest Solera system in the continental United States.

“I love the flavor profile. It is rich, delicious, very sippable,” Swanson said. “I like to approach it the way a lot of people approach whiskey. You can drink it neat or on the rocks, or you can put it in a cocktail. It’s very elevated and unique. The rum actually moves to a new barrel every quarter, 36 different barrels.”

The result is rum with deep flavors of caramel and vanilla, smoky oak and tropical fruit. It can be enjoyed by itself or layered with other ingredients at the distillery’s in-house bar, where tiki cocktails enhance the rum offerings. There’s also food