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            Welcome to Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina.  A short drive from Charleston, South Carolina through the back roads of this beautiful sea island where Spanish moss hangs from trees and the one of the country's oldest Angel Oak trees has been standing for 1400 years takes you to Irvin-House Vineyards and the Firefly Vodka Distillery. This 48 acre farm now home to 11 ½ acres of vineyard was once the grounds for giant stables and property storing animals, carts, and props for movies. In fact, animals that starred in the movie The Patriot were here. There is word that Mel Gibson trained on a horse right where I am standing. However, today I'm being told to watch out for fire ants wherever I stand because they ain't as friendly as the Firefly Vodka. Jim Irvin and his wife purchased it around nine years ago.

            As partner and Master Distiller Jim Irvin started the winery; he says, “We had no idea what we were doing, but we did it one day at a time.” Whether he knew what he was doing or not, the local grocery stores couldn't keep Jim's first Muscadine grape wines on the shelves. Shortly after, Jim expanded by hiring a company to assist in distribution. Scott Newitt was the representative from Gallo that would oversee Jim's wines. Scott had been dreaming for a while about being his own boss and making his own vodka. It wasn't long before Scott partnered with Jim to create the world's first Muscadine Wine Flavored Vodka. By the way, Muscadine wines have up to seven times more resveratrol (that is the powerful antioxidant, drink up!) than all other red wines.

   “The most recognized state flag in the country is the Texas State Flag. South Carolina's State Flag is the second one,” says Scott as he shows us a bottle of the original Muscadine Vodka. The Palmetto Tree and crescent  adorn all the Firefly vodkas. Firefly also produces a six times distilled Firefly Straight Vodka. Being distilled six times not only makes it super smooth, but this is a pretty big deal in the world of vodkas. Findlandia and Ketel One are distilled only five times and Belvedere only four times. Wait, I did mention something about that Sweet Tea Vodka, right?

            In 2006, they introduced the world's first Sweet Tea Vodka in South Carolina. Now, that The Original Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka is sold all 50 states and in Canadian provinces. One of the first places in the Tri-State I ever sampled Firefly's Sweet Tea Vodka was… you guessed it: Firefly Southern Grill.  Scott Newitt says he is familiar with the restaurant, but I don't think he has seen the video where I accidentally spill his Firefly Vodka into my MacBook Pro keyboard and the camera is still rolling as I suck the vodka out to save my computer. Look on BourbonBlog.com for this short clip and entire video episode of our Firefly Vodka Distillery tour. 

            Firefly also makes Raspberry Tea, Mint Tea, Peach Tea, and Lemon Tea. All of those received Gold Medals at the 2009 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, and the Mint Tea was ranked #3 out of over 200 flavored vodkas. Scott and Jim created the original tea vodka. A few other distilleries have created their own versions of tea vodka, but none of them can quite match Firefly's. You can spend a few minutes with Master Distiller Jim Irvin and know what a passionate genius he is when it comes to creation. 

            On the week BourbonBlog.com is in South Carolina, Firefly is just releasing two new rums. If it wasn't good enough already tasting vodka and wine on a summer afternoon here we go with another spirit! The first rum is the Sea Island Carolina Gold Rum which is aged in a used Buffalo Trace Bourbon barrel. Bourbon barrels can go several places when they are done making bourbon: 1) To Scotland to age scotch; 2) To Louisiana to age Tabasco sauce; 3) To age some beers in Kentucky and other places; and 4) To the Caribbean and now South Carolina to age rum. Yet another first though, this is the first rum to be aged in a used Buffalo Trace Bourbon barrel. It is an amazing blend of one, two and three year old rum along with a virgin rum with hints of the Buffalo Trace. 

            One of the best surprises of this visit comes in the Java Rhum, which is a coffee flavored rum.  Forget about your Frap a Cap of whatever you choose to Joe uhccino, this stuff is unreal. It is 100% Columbian and contains 185 parts of caffeine per million (ppm). The Federal Government actually cuts off how much caffeine can go into an alcohol at 200 ppm due to the effects of caffeine and alcohol mixing. A normal cup of coffee is anywhere from 500 to 1,000 ppm.

            Enough with the science lesson, get on with the tour and visit BourbonBlog.com for our video episode of Firefly, check us out online at twitter.com/BourbonBlog, and try some Firefly Vodka!

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