Hidden Ships, a family-run distillery, keeps community’s spirits high
Andy Szwejbka was nearing retirement from the Marines. His wife, Amy, was cutting back her time as an active registered nurse. Both had their minds on what would come next.
A trip in 2019 to Murto Made Distillery in Huntersville got them thinking. North Carolina’s craft beer boom was getting into full swing, but craft distilleries were still rare. Andy started studying for the University of Louisville’s online Distilled Spirits Business Certificate and finished in 2021, the same year he retired. The couple headed to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, an established route of 43 distilleries that spans from Cincinnati to Nashville, with options for tours, tastings and classes in whichever region you choose to visit.
Next step was Moonshine University, which teaches the craft of making spirits. After that they hired a consultant, Stephen Tomori of Kindred Spirits Consulting, the same one that helped set up End of Days in Wilmington.
Soon they had a lease in the new Tritons Village shopping center off Roland Avenue. Building began.
Inspired by their trip to Murto Made, where Amy drank her first Smoked Old Fashioned, they fashioned the bar with a pre-Prohibition feel that includes tufted leather chairs, a fireplace and a long wooden bar.
The couple had to reinforce the floor in the attached distillery to accommodate their new hybrid copper pot and column still; it holds 250 gallons of mash, which is made by fermenting grain. The result is 12,000 bottles of vodka, gin, rum or whiskey, anything that is the result of distillation. Each bottle is labeled by hand with a handwritten batch number.
Hidden Ships makes a citrusy gin. “I did not want it to taste like a Christmas tree, from the juniper,” says Andy. “So we dialed it back to meet the standard; it’s citrus-forward, with lemon and lime peel, lemon verbena and elderberry.” The gin won a gold medal in the 2024 New York International Spirits Competition.
Aging in former bourbon barrels right now are what the couple calls rested rum, which is likely to end up in a classic cocktail.
The story was originally published in the Fall 2024 issue.
