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The Roots of Richland Rum Vonk retired as a relatively young man. As CEO of the
u.s.
operations of Dutch
temporary staffing company Randstad, he had that option. He brought the company from Europe to the United States in 1992, and by the time he retired in 1999, he had grown it to 525 offices nationwide with annual revenues of $1.6 billion. As if that weren't impressive enough, under Vonk's leadership Randstad secured the sole staffing contract for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. On any given day during the Olympics, the company managed approximately 110,000 workers, the largest single-source staffing contract on record. In 1999 Vonk and his wife Karin retired to their home on Longboat Key, Fla. The swanky island resort held his attention briefly, but by 2002 the energetic Vonk was bored. He decided to buy into a troubled Jay McCain
and Erik Vonk
Florida-based human resources firm, Gevity HR. Once again, Vonk's business acumen (he earned a law degree in the 70s, before going into international banking) turned the company around, and in 2007 he sold his shares and retired for a second time. Rewind to the mid-1990s. While Vonk was in Atlanta, he purchased a parcel of land in Stewart and Webster counties.
.~
"I wanted to buy some land," Vonk explains, "so I looked within a 120-mile radius of Atlanta. To the north are mountains, and I didn't want that. To the east it's too busy. But to the south there are rolling hills and lots of springs and spring-fed creeks." His search took him to property six miles outside of Richland, Ga., where he established his 1,700-acre farm Vennebroeck
(a Dutch word meaning "ponds
and brooks"). "There I started experimenting with different varieties of sugarcane. Each year we grow a little more," Vonk says. Between 30 and 40 acres are now planted in sugarcane. "Sugarcane used to be grown in this area," he adds. "But you can only get one harvest, whereas you can get two harvests a year in warmer climates, so [sugarcane production] moved to Florida." From the mid-to-late '90s Vonk served on the Carter Center board of directors. When Pres. Jimmy Carter found out Vonk had purchased land in a neighboring county, Carter started
..â&#x20AC;˘.â&#x20AC;˘..
calling him "neighbor." And it was through his Carter Center connection that Vonk met his future distiller, McCain. A mutual friend introduced them - McCain was in agriculture at the time - and the two soon became good friends and, later, work associates. While Vonk was laying the groundwork for realizing his rum-making dream, the road to Richland Rum would be a long one. The distillery just celebrated its ribbon-cutting this past June. The first hurdle Vonk encountered was that Stewart and Webster counties are dry; alcohol sales are illegal. He learned that Jack Daniels bourbon is produced in a dry county in Tennessee, and so he got a legal opinion on the matter. In 2007, Vonk's lawyers advised him to move forward with his distillery plans. From there, three years of government red-tape ensued. "Finally, the feds came through," says Vonk. "Then the state said 'no.' We went to Atlanta, and while all the lawmakers were adamant we
couldn't proceed, one man said 'Go to Richland.' Turns out Richland is an enclave in the dry county that allows liquor sales. They have a liquor store here." So Vonk and McCain attended a Richland City Council meeting. "I peeked in the room and saw the head of the Baptist Church, the head of the Garden Club, and so on," says McCain, a native of the area, "and I turned to Erik and said, 'We're in trouble.''' "They sat me at the head of the table," Vonk adds, "and all those eyes were staring at me, all these little, old purple-haired
ladies. And then the whole meeting
was 'How can we help you?' 'What do you need us to do?' It was incredible." Two buildings they'd already constructed on the farm couldn't be used because they weren't in the designated area, says McCain. "But the city came up with a building downtown, brokered a deal, and many townsfolk volunteered labor to make it come together." "I can't wait to pay taxes," says Vonk. "I'm serious. I can't wait to give something back to this community." Richland Rum is nearing completion of its second batch (a batch takes six months to produce), but had yet It takes 30 one-gallon jugs of rum tofill one barrel.
As a courtesy, we file to all insurance companies 48
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2012
-. to go on the shelves to sell at press time due to more red tape. However, it should be in liquor stores by October.
All About Rum Vonk and McCain love to talk rum. "Anything with natural sugars can be converted to alcohol. Potatoes make vodka; grains and com make whiskey; and sugarcane makes rum," Vonk explains. "You take the cane stalk and press it to make juice, heat it to a syrup, take most of the sugar out, and it makes molasses. "It is this pure sugarcane juice that makes the best rum - called cacacba. The juice only keeps for about a week, so it must be processed immediately. We will call this rum 'distiller's private reserve' or something like that. The rest of the year we make rum from the syrup. But never from molasses, which is what most rum is made from." Vonk doesn't mince words: "Most of the rum on the shelves is crap." He goes on to explain. "There are three levels of rum. There's rum industrially made in a factory, like Bacardi, where they buy denatured alcohol, dilute it to 80 proof and add 'rum essence,' and sometimes color. One batch of Richland Rum takes six months to produce.
sept/oct
2012
SOUTHWEST
GEORGIA
LIVING 49
A shattered wri$t·4tirltwo surgeries left me unable to move nry wr4tiOrJingers.l am convinced that without Eric's l:ielp, nry recovery would not be where it is today.lbave total use of nry band. - TERRY DUNcAN,
Americus
••Then there's a second level where the
ALBANY AREA ~\
ndri
distillers make a mash out of juice or syrup
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to distill, but they don't age it. They buy
~
large batches of (level one) 190 proof alcohol and blend it.
':!!rapy
"And level three uses pure, natural ingredients distilled to a barrel where it ages for at least six months. We are leaving some in barrels to get to one, two, five years old. Our rum has nothing added but Georgia sunshine, rain and dirt." Vonk briefly describes the distillation process. First, yeast is added to the sugarcane syrup and ferments for three days. Then it is sent to the distil. "You keep the distil above 187 degrees - the temperature
I AM A father. brother. son. HUJti.. daughter. sister, UNCLE,
that ethanol evaporates - but below 212 degrees - the temperature
that water does.
aunt, grandfather,
The alcohol steam is drawn out, where it condensates
husband, wife, ~.
NEIGHBOR, busBowner,employee,TEACHER
and drips out. This boiling
other products (congeners) to come out to provide taste. These tastemakers are determined by the type of sugarcane,
3 FEET
... it is truly
an art form." So McCain is perfecting his art, and
BE AWARE AND PASS CYCLISTS SAFELY. REMEMBER WE ARE ALL CONNECTED IN SOME WAY •..SLOW DOWN.
soon we will be fortunate enough to experience it. In addition to Richland Rum being offered in liquor stores this fall, Vonk
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and McCain are planning to open a tasting room next door to the Richland distillery. Perhaps
the City of Richland's
new tag line will become
"Home of
Rum's Renaissance." For more information,
visit
www.richlandrum.com. 50
SOUTHWEST
GEORGIA
LIVING
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..J BIKE
TO EXERCISE, TO GET TO WORK, TO RELAX •••THE LAW STATES A MOTORIST IS TO GIVE THREE FEET CLEARANCE TO A CyCLIST •...•
process is everything. You want enough
the yeast, the temperature
sro.ndt'l'104-he.r,
2012