Happy National Rum day to all. August 16th is National Rum day I discovered and it seemed the perfect occasion to open a bottle I bought last year on Cape Cod. Cape Cod to me is quintessential beach and Rum is a great beach/sailing/water drink. Despite the invasion of seals and great white sharks in the Ocean, I continue to visit once a year. My most recent trip ended this earlier this summer. I am usually there for the last two weeks of August but this year changed it up. As usual, I was just thrilled to be at the beach, swim in the bay, eat lobster rolls and fried clams and generally not think about anything but sun, sand, water, and wind.

I have been spending my summers on Cape Cod, specifically in Truro or North Truro since I was three weeks old. There were many years when I was absent from the Cape because of my years living in Italy but since I have been back, I have made the Cape a consistent part of my life. I love everything about Cape Cod and it will forever represent the beach to me.

The idea of a vineyard on the Cape seemed impossible when I was young. When I used to come to the Cape there were no vinifera grapes growing. The Roberts family changed that and opened Truro Vineyards in 2007. Through the years I have tried many of their wines including the one that comes in a lighthouse bottle.

Maybe it’s the beach or just the pleasure of being in a place I love that made me really want to drink the local wine which now comes in cans. Truro and North Truro sell some pretty sophisticated wines for a beach area but they also have a local vineyard and all the stores carry many of the wines from Truro Vineyards. What I didn’t know was that they also have a distillery which they opened in 2013. The distillery is called South Hollow Spirits. There’s a nice video and a great explanation for the name of their rum. Apparently Cape Cod had a lot of bootleggers during prohibition and twenty police boats came after one of them hence the name of this rum.

I am not a huge cocktail fan so I am drink this spicy rum with a bit of ice. It’s perfect with Cape Cod potato chips. That’s a wrap for this Tuesday Sip.