Ready for a place to sample spirits in Beaufort? A new distillery is opening soon
The stainless steel tubs and towers that eventually will produce handcrafted spirits in a former Beaufort box store arrived by flatbed truck Wednesday.
RLB Distillery is setting up shop in a 5,000-square-foot space on Boundary Street. The business will produce rum, vodka, moonshine and bourbon on site from within the garage doors of the former KMart building in Beaufort Town Center.
Visitors will be able to sample the spirits from a room looking onto the gleaming stills and towers where the process will unfold. A third room will be dedicated to retail sales of merchandise such as shirts and shot glasses and the bottled products.
Owners and Lady’s Island residents Brigid Fackrell and her husband, Brian, have spent the past four years developing the plan for the business, Brigid said. Brian Fackrell said he hopes to open by St. Patrick’s Day in March, though the timeline is contingent on receiving various approvals to operate the strictly regulated business.
Brian, who owns an electrical company, began exploring the idea with inspiration from the television show “Moonshiners,” his wife said. He took courses at Moonshine University in Kentucky and visited the Virginia distillery where RLB will initially source its bourbon, which has to be aged.
Grain will come from Orangeburg and sugar cane from Hampton, Brigid said.
“We’re trying to keep everything as local as possible,” she said.
The business’ initials are a distilled version of the actual name of the business that will appear on some merchandise: Rotten Little Bastard — a nod to a nickname Brian’s mother bestowed upon him at a young age.
The former box-store space has been transformed into numerous retail spaces, including running specialty store Grounded Running, Wild Birds Unlimited and a new location for Barbers of the Lowcountry.
Next door to the distillery is a vacant restaurant space advertised for lease.
RLB will join Daufuskie Island Rum Company and Lucky Duck Distillery in Yemassee as similar businesses locally. The Beaufort store will be able to direct visitors to those other options nearby, Brigid said.
“People like to go to these kind of things,” she said. “You don’t just go to one brewery and never go to another one.”
