David and Laura Watson

My name is David Watson, I own D.E.W. Distillation LLC.
The origins of Cypress Creek Reserve Rum began in the year 2000 when I went to the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean on a treasure hunt. Diving on sunken ships is a lot of fun, but no treasure was found. While relaxing in this island paradise, it was realized that there is a fine Rum made there, which inspired me to make my own Rum.

I decided to build a small distillery of my own. Countless hours spent on the internet provided the base information to get started making Rum. Then came the experimentation phase, this took years to go through. My main priority was to make a quality Rum completely from scratch, with everything being done at the one location. I set to work setting up a distillery on my property, in Wimberley, TX.

I have spent most of my life working as a welder. I built some of the equipment and tanks and installed all of them. I bought a 600-gallon stainless steel tank to use for a still tank. I then designed and built the head and condenser out of copper. There is an offset head type design on the pot still. It does make some fine Rum. That is what counts.

The rum is distilled twice. There is a stripping run and a finishing run. Unlike vodka, Rum needs to retain certain flavors that multiple distillations would remove. I believe that a pot still gives more control over the distillation process. After distilling, I filter the Rum through activated carbon for smoothness.

My wife Laura does all the paperwork and office duties, which is quite extensive. The government requires everything done in the distillery to be recorded. How she makes sense of my notes I have no idea. She also helps with all the distilling. When needed she helps out the bartender behind the bar. When making the vanilla extract she helps hand chop all the vanilla beans. She has a hand in every phase of the business.

To make Vanilla Flavored Rum we start with the finished white Rum to make a vanilla extract. Laura takes this Rum and adds fresh hand-chopped gourmet quality vanilla beans, then infused over a period of time, to make an extract that is used to flavor the Rum. We use the Tahitian variety of vanilla bean for our extract. This variety has a complex floral scent and is my preference over other varieties of vanilla bean. Then the white rum and the extract are combined to complete the Vanilla Flavored Rum.

Our Artisan well water that is used to ferment and cut the Rum is an asset that cannot be overlooked. The Texas Hill Country has water perfectly suited for making liquor. Certainly, this is one of the reasons that so many in the wine and liquor industry have located in central Texas.

Our limited edition aged Rum is only sold at the distillery as it is aged in single barrel batches. I age in used whiskey barrels for 2-3 years. If you like a fine whiskey or bourbon this one is a must to try.

Around 6 years ago I added a covered cocktail patio and deck. Since then we have added a large tree house deck up in a large oak tree. I made sure that the deck was not attached to the tree in any way so as not to harm the huge tree. It is a wonderfully peaceful place to relax and enjoy one of our delicious cocktails. Come on out drink some rum, play horseshoes, washers or go back in time on our swing.