Sea Hagg Distillery revives tradition, now open for samples and sales in North Hampton

As it did centuries ago, a Caribbean influence has again brought rum to New Hampshire.

Heather Hughes was drinking a rum punch on a sandy tropical beach when she started thinking about ways to make her warm vacations last longer, like importing rum back home to the Seacoast for new blends. Her research found that rum has a significant history in New England, and the industry could meld her interests in art and science, food and drink, history and lore.  

Hughes co-founded the Sea Hagg Distillery in North Hampton, joining a small resurgence of local liquors across the nation.

It is now open for tastings and retail sales of its first product, a full-bodied silver rum available at $28 for a fifth. Next month, the distillery hopes to offer spiced and dark rums, which are currently aging, and it may eventually add flavored varieties using local produce.

You can smell the molasses before sipping the rum, as well as vanilla and a little citrus, then there’s a zing at the tip of the tongue, and a smooth finish with caramel flavor, Hughes says. She said it mixes well with soda water and a lime for a light drink or ginger beer for what she calls a “bright and sunny,” rather than a “dark and stormy.”

She is in the process of contacting bars and restaurants to carry the rum and help brand it in the community, then get it on shelves in state liquor stores.

But, for now, Sea Hagg rum can only be found at the distillery, where guests are welcomed in a cool, midnight-blue room with bright, seaside art by Rose Bryant and a black poodle.

A sweet smell comes in through the back, where molasses is mixed with water and yeast in stainless steel fermentation tanks, piped through a traditional copper alembic pot still to separate the alcohol, and aged in custom toasted spirit barrels. The molasses comes from a small, co-op sugar cane mill in Louisiana, where Hughes once lived as a child.

Hughes and her partner, Ron Vars, make the rum themselves, having developed a recipe with the right balance for the flavor. They also bottle the liquor by hand, label the bottles, and seal them in blue wax.

“I’m looking to introduce new things, but through traditional production techniques,” Hughes said.

Their mascot is a dark mermaid with a mess of eel-like tangled curls and a claw-like hand, but a friendly enough smile (it looks nothing like the Popeye cartoon character Sea Hag, a pirate witch).

Hughes said they wanted to honor the female-run business, but also make light of it.

“Rum’s fun,” she said. “It’s slightly irreverent.”

And, of course, the name brings up the nautical and tropical connection, a big part of her life. 

The local history of rum starts with importation from the Caribbean to Colonial America, where production of it temporarily became New England’s largest industry. This led to a profitable slave trade to support sugar plantations, and to taxes imposed by England that helped instigate the American Revolution. Hughes believes the popularity of rum may have even contributed to the Industrial Revolution. But, due in part to the difficulty in meeting sugar demand, grain-based American whiskey eventually became the drink of choice here.

Hughes said one of the first corporations in the state of New Hampshire was a sugar plant in Portsmouth, and there was a rum distillery in the city until the early 20th century. There are old stories of locals dressing in costumes to protect themselves from English law when unloading rum cargo from ships, she said.

Though rum’s history comes with a negative side, Hughes said she looks forward to returning the positive—locally, handcrafted liquor in small batches.
There are still a handful of distillers in the area now, including Flag Hill Winery and Distillery in

Lee, which makes vodka, gin, brandy, white whiskey, liqueurs and wine, but Hughes said distilling is the next step in drinking locally.

“I want to be the Seacoast distiller,” Hughes said. “I want to help set the trend for micro-distilleries.”

The Sea Hagg is located in Victory Park, 135 Lafayette Road, Unit 9, North Hampton, 603-379-2274, www.seahaggdistillery.com.