Richland Rum sits in downtown Brunswick, Georgia, where founders Richie and Erik Vonck turned their Caribbean sailing adventures into a rum distillery that opened in 2011. The brothers, originally from Belgium, spent years sailing the Caribbean and fell in love with traditional rum-making methods they discovered on various islands. Their 3,000-square-foot facility on Newcastle Street houses a custom-built copper pot still imported from Germany, where they produce small-batch rums using Louisiana molasses and natural fermentation. The operation stays deliberately small, with the Vonck brothers handling most of the production themselves, from milling to bottling. You’ll find them working the stills most days, bringing that hands-on sailing mentality to every batch they produce. The distillery focuses exclusively on rum, which makes it somewhat unique in Georgia’s craft spirits scene that’s dominated by whiskey and moonshine operations. Their production philosophy centers on slow fermentation and careful distillation, techniques they learned from master distillers in the Caribbean during their sailing years.