Four Hounds Distilling is all about rum.
Sometimes a distillery just jumps in your lap and begs to be taken home. Once he saw Four Hounds Distilling’s puppy dog eyes, cozy vibe and laid-back energy, Ray Rock understood his family was about to get a new member.
And it moved in fast. Three months after he and his wife, Cheryl, bought their house in Carolina Beach, they were taking houseguests on a tour and discovered one of the stops, Four Hounds, was for sale.
They made an offer and were beat out by another buyer. That buyer disappeared and by December 1, 2023, the Rocks were half owner of Four Hounds. Ray Rock, who has worked in finance in Raleigh for the past 30 years—and still spends three days a week there—was in for a crash course on how to make spirits. He worked with his co-owner, Chris Stellaccio, to learn the craft. But Stellaccio left January 1, 2024, to accompany his daughter, a professional surfer, to Costa Rica.
“I had to learn how to do it in 30 days,” Rock says. “That’s a lot of changes in a short amount of time.”
Currently the distillery operates out of a commercial building behind a car wash on Carolina Beach Road, which it is the process of outgrowing.
A small bar upfront is operated by Michelle Tucker, known to all as “Tucker,” who worked at Four Hounds before the Rocks bought it and is now a minority owner. It fills quickly on summer afternoons; overflow goes to a back patio with a fire pit.
Photos by Nolan DeBerry
In between is the distillery, mostly operated by Rock, who coaxes his spirits from a 50-gallon still; he can perform an about face to do the bottling. Small French oak barrels, where three of his four rums are rested, can be found in an unfinished, low-ceilinged attic accessed by steep wooden stairs.
The small still cannot keep up with demand; outside the distillery, the rum is only available at the Carolina Beach ABC store.
Rock is still learning the craft through hands-on experimentation, his preferred method. And is enjoying a job where the dress code is significantly more casual than the tie and jacket he’s sported for the last few decades.
Next up is to take over the bay next door and up the distilling capacity to a 100-gallon tank.
“We can expand our tasting room with a bigger area and get a bigger office,” he says, looking around what is essentially a garage. In France, he’d be called a garagiste, a name given to French winemakers in the 1990s who wanted to work outside the system on a smaller scale with full control.
“We’re looking to hire a production manager to get to a bigger scale,” he adds. “Well, you know, that’s the plan anyway.”
fourhoundsdistilling.com
