Roulaison Distilling Co. – A Distillery Visit

While in New Orleans, I had the opportunity to tour another distillery, Roulaison, and spend a few hours with their head distiller, Andrew Lohfeld (also co-founder and CEO). Andrew comes from a craft beer background and previously worked at Kings County Distillery in New York. His business partner, Patrick Hernandez, along with a few other staff members, help run the distillery. (I believe that during my first visit in 2023, Patrick was the one who gave me my tour.)

Let’s start with a key detail that pictures might not fully convey—this is a pretty small distillery! Everything is confined to a single large room, which contains their molasses storage tanks, fermentation vats, alembic stills, casks for aging, and a small tasting room/checkout area.

But let’s get to the fun part of any visit—the rum! Andrew and his team work with a particular sugar mill to source Grade B molasses, which you can see in the photos. (I tasted the molasses straight from the tank, and it was quite flavorful with a hint of savory character.) One of the aspects that sets Roulaison apart from other American rum distilleries is their extended fermentation process. They pitch dunder, stillage, sour mash—whatever you want to call it—into the tote with the molasses and let it ferment for at least 10 days. Per my discussion with Andrew, this duration can vary based on temperature, humidity, and other factors. For example, during the rare snowfall they experienced, the distillery’s temperature dropped to 47 degrees Fahrenheit, which slowed fermentation.

Regarding the fermentation process, they use pitched yeast—specifically a beer yeast, though I can’t recall the exact strain. While molasses fermentation accounts for about 90% of their distilling output, they also work with fresh-pressed sugarcane juice during harvest season. Fermentation for this differs slightly, usually relying on endemic yeast and running a bit shorter than 10 days.

Distillation at Roulaison is also unique. Instead of using one large still, they operate several smaller alembic-style stills. Stills 1-4 are used for stripping runs, while the final still is used for spirit runs. The heads and hearts are collected for use, while the tails are saved for re-distillation as Queen’s Share rum.

When it comes to aging, you can see from my pictures that barrels are everywhere! This was partly due to some reorganization, but also because, at the time of my visit, Roulaison was selecting single barrels for release in celebration of their anniversary. Due to Andrew’s time at Kings County, they have a number of barrels from that distillery on hand. However, they also use a variety of casks, including ex-brandy, ex-sherry, and ex-red wine casks. A new addition that excites me (especially after tasting it) is their use of ex-Balcones bourbon casks.

Now, I’ve never been a big fan of most of Balcones’ products (though their single malt is quite good), but these 63-gallon barrels are built thicker to help with angel’s share evaporation, as Balcones, being a Texas distillery, experiences significant liquid loss during aging. Roulaison faces a similar challenge, with Andrew stating they lose anywhere from 10-12% per year due to the climate. Hopefully, these new casks help mitigate that—plus, they’ve already produced some fantastic rum!

In addition to barrels of aging distillate scattered throughout the space, Andrew had some fun, high-ester Queen’s Share rum aging in drums. We tasted some, and it was incredibly intense. This rum is blended into their Overproof offering, which I took home a bottle of last visit—it’s some pretty good stuff.

Beyond standard rum-making, Roulaison likes to experiment. They have a fascinating and delicious collaboration with a local New Orleans chocolate producer, Piety & Desire Chocolate. Roulaison incorporates their cacao husks into the stills during distillation to add flavor. After distillation, the rum is infused with cocoa nibs to create a sugar-free chocolate rum liqueur that is absolutely delicious. The spent nibs are then returned to Piety & Desire to be dried and used in chocolate bars, which are phenomenal. (I might order more for home since Piety ships!) Additionally, Piety & Desire uses Roulaison’s rum in some of their products.

While rum is great, something even more exciting was happening at Roulaison when I visited—their commitment to community. New Orleans is home to an incredible organization called Turning Tables (https://www.turningtablesnola.org/). Turning Tables is a nonprofit that advances equity in the hospitality industry by providing mentorship, education, and career opportunities for Black and Brown professionals. Their hands-on training program includes bar and restaurant skills, business education, and leadership development to empower participants for long-term success. While I was there, one of their members, Ty, was completing an externship with Andrew to learn about production as part of the Turning Tables Bar Program. Supporting the local community like this is incredibly important, and it’s great to see Roulaison playing a role.

All of this is to say that Roulaison is run by great people making unique and exciting rums. If you find yourself in New Orleans and want a rum tour, they are absolutely worth the visit!