Unique rum hits trendy eateries
AS a wide-eyed teenager, Eugene Coertzen cut his teeth in the liquor business in traditional moonshine-style.
Soaking up generations of knowledge and experience, he regularly joined his grandfather and father in the back yard of the Springbok Cafe in the rural town of Zastron, where the Free Staters finetuned their moonshine brews of witblitz and mampoer.
Today, Coertzen is a confident, unassuming 25-year-old and the sole proprietor of one of Port Elizabeth’s newest and most novel enterprises – a fully licensed, craft rum distillery.
Launched in March thousands of kilometres from the centre of global rum production in the Caribbean, Coertzen’s Brickmakers Distilling Company has charged on to the market with its unique Rhino Rum, which, just months since its inception, is on the shelves at some of the city’s trendiest bars and eateries.
The dark spirit, which Coertzen distills from locally sourced molasses, has also secured its first retail space at an independent Bay liquor store.
Speaking from his modest distillery off Brickmakerskloof Road in lower South End, Coertzen said the distillery was a dream come true.
“I wanted to be the first person to distill rum in Port Elizabeth, and I have done it,” he said.
“It has been a really exciting process and I am pleased with how things have turned out.
“I have secured placement of Rhino Rum at top venues in Port Elizabeth and my expansion plans include increasing production volumes and the number of retail outlets.”
Based in the city’s trendiest new business hub near the revamped Old Tramways Building, Brickmakers Distilling is the fourth alcoholic beverage company to set up production in the Baakens Valley, where three craft beer brewers have already made their mark in the craft beverage industry.
“My grandfather had a still. He used to make wine, but if the wine was not turning out well, he used to use the grapes in the still which then produced the spirit,” Coertzen said.
“I became really interested in it and later started distilling as a hobby.
“On my 20th birthday, when asked what I wanted for a present, I asked my grandfather to give me his still, and everything just went from there.”
Having sunk about R200 000 into establishing his business, Brickmakers Distillery is centred around an R80 000 imported still which distills 100 litres of molasses in a batch, with each batch producing between nine and 10 litres of rum.
“I am working on a number of projects, one of which is vodka production, which I can produce out of the same still,” Coertzen, who named his rum Rhino not only for its African connection, but also with an eye on future involvement in rhino conservation, said.