Cotton & Reed sits in a converted warehouse on 5th Street NE in Washington DC’s NoMa neighborhood, founded by Reed Walker and Jordan Cotton in 2014. These two Georgetown Law grads ditched their legal careers to chase a rum-making dream, opening DC’s first distillery since Prohibition ended. The 6,000-square-foot space houses custom copper stills from Forsyths in Scotland, where they focus exclusively on rum production using Louisiana sugarcane and blackstrap molasses. Walker and Cotton spent years researching rum traditions across the Caribbean before settling on their approach, combining traditional pot still methods with modern fermentation techniques. The distillery officially opened its doors to visitors in 2016, bringing rum production back to a city that once thrived on spirits before the dry years shut everything down. You’ll find them in an industrial building that fits the neighborhood’s mix of old DC grit and new development, with concrete floors, exposed brick, and the sweet smell of molasses fermentation filling the air.