- Next on North Carolina Weekend, it's all about wineries, breweries and spirits.

Join us at the Chatham Beverage District.

We'll meet the cider makers from Botanist and Barrel, sample the spirits at Southern Grace Distilleries, and our state magazine takes us on a wine lovers escape to the Hiwassee Highlands.

Coming up next.

- [Narrator] Funding for North Carolina Weekend is provided in part by Visit NC dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains, across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier island beaches.

You're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[upbeat music] ♪ - Welcome to North Carolina Weekend everyone.

I'm Deborah Holt Noel and we are at the Chatham Beverage District.

The Triangle's first district featuring multiple craft beverages, where you can sip, tour and buy.

Here you can bounce from cidery, to meadery, to distillery.

And the Fair Game Tasting Room, has a selection of North Carolina specialty food products.

Let's check it out.

[upbeat music] - Chatham Beverage District, is a collection of small scale artists and producers using local ingredients, making delicious products that people can taste and carry home.

Today, it includes Fair Game Beverage Company" where I work and Chatham Cider Works.

Jim and Maureen and Starrlight Mead, which has Ben and Becky up on the hill.

[upbeat music continues] [indistinct] We're not a bar.

We are a tasting room and it's a place where you have a different consumer experience than you can find anywhere else.

[woman laughs] - [Man] So this is our- - So you've come down to the end of Lorax lane.

[gentle music] Here at our Eco-Industrial Park, you come into the Fair Game, tasting room and you either get a beer.

We've got craft beer on tap.

Or you get a cider made in North Carolina.

Or you do a spirits tasting.

You learn about how craft spirits are made.

On the lawn there's a life-sized chess set.

We've got a nature interpretive trail that surrounds the campus.

You walk the trail, hangout, have beer or wine or cider or spirits tasting or mead.

You can also join in with a group of folks that have come for a distillery tour.

You can go up and tour the meadery.

We've gotten swing set playground, teeter-totter for the kids.

It's where the food is grown and the beverages are made, and it's a lot of stuff to take in.

- That's good, it's not super sweet.

- No.

- We're here part of a happening in Chatham County, and we're also on the cusp of a really growing segment in beverages.

[upbeat gentle music] - Well, we're committed to using only North Carolina apples.

So, we go to Henderson County where we work with orchardists there, we get juice that's not been blended or pasteurized or had any kind of preservatives added to it.

We want it just as mother nature makes it.

- We ascribe to the principal that cider was made with the fruit that was grown near you.

All of our ciders are very dry.

I call it almost a European style of cider.

- [Jim] Our [indistinct] style was called Highway 64, because we're off Highway 64. and the orchards we go to are in Highway 64 in Henderson County near Bat Cave.

- So we say it connects us, tree to bottle.

- Mead is really just fermented honey.

[upbeat country music] Beer is fermented from grain.

Grape wine is fermented from grapes.

Mead is fermented honey.

So I'm gonna recommend trying this one first.

This is two types of ginger, both dried and fresh.

- One of the things that people don't realize about mead is they hear honey and they assume that it's all sweet and think and syrupy, and it doesn't have to be.

We do both dry meads and sweet meads.

We give 'em something and we say, "This is made out of honey," and they taste it and go, "Wow, it's not sweet."

- Isn't it nice?

- Yeah, it's really good.

- People that like mead tend to also be craft beverage drinkers.

And so, having other craft beverages in the area is fantastic.

- We're the 13th legal distillery in North Carolina.

We make distilled spirits, artisan, craft, barrel-aged, small batch spirits, which we sell here in our tasting room.

And also at ABC Stores across North Carolina.

We were here making fuel at Piedmont Biofuels.

These folks wanted to open up a distillery on our campus and I thought, "Wow, fuel business is hard.

"If you're gonna go to all the trouble "of making alcohol maybe you should drink it, drink the best and burn the rest."

What makes Fair Game Beverage different from other distilleries in the state is our barrel aging program.

Our aged spirits are North of two years on average.

All of our ingredients are local.

- What's great about it, is there a no televisions in there.

And we've actually heard from a lot of people that that's what they want.

They wanna sit around tables.

They wanna sit around a bar.

They wanna know the bartender.

They wanna know the people who made the products that they're drinking.

- You can go tour and taste and tour and taste and spend your day at the Beverage District.

[upbeat music] - [Deborah] Visit the Chatham Beverage District, at 220 Lorax Lane in Pittsboro.

You can give them a call at 9192005549.

Each venue has its own hours and offers different products.

So be sure to check their website at chathambeveragedistrict.com.

- About an hour North of here is another local organic cidery, with a warm hospitable atmosphere.

Let's meet the cider makers at Botanist and Barrel in Cedar Grove.

- Botanist and Barrel is a sense of place.

We are focused on terroir.

It's about showing local fruit, local agriculture.

It's about showing native yeast.

We want people to be able to experience both the land and then the beverage that comes from the land.

- Our cider is really, I think a very thoughtful beverage nothing is added in and nothing was taken away.

- We're old world cider makers with new world tendencies.

- [Amie] We keep it wild.

We keep it raw.

It's fresh unadulterated, good cider.

- We trying to shift the way people look at what Southern cider and Southern wine can be.

We think of ourselves as being hyper-local.

So, everything we use is coming within a 200 mile radius of our farm.

We do a lot of barrel-aged ciders.

We cross the lines between brewing and wine making, and a lot of the techniques that we use.

- We're not just hybrid in terms of like we make wine and we make cider, but we're really kind of blurring the lines between those two things.

We wanna surprise you.

We wanna bring you something new and fresh.

There's no rules here.

- In a place where anything goes when it comes to taste, you'll want a tour guide, meet Amie Fields, the South's only cider's sommelier.

- Hello?

- [Amie] Hey there.

- [Chelsea] Hi, I'm Chelsea.

- Hey, I'm Amie.

- Hi Amie.

Nice to meet you.

I am new to cider.

I would love to have a taste.

- [Amie] Would you like me to pick some stuff out for you?

- [Chelsea] Yes, that would be great.

- Awesome.

Cool.

So I think I'm gonna start you out with one of our flagships ciders.

This is the "Less is More," Pet Net cider.

It actually predates champagne- - It's delicious.

- [Amie] And we bottle it in a primary fermentation while it still has a little bit of sugar left and then it continues to sparkle in the bottle naturally.

- Yeah.

And I love that it's very crisp and easy to drink.

- That's right.

I mean we're unpasteurized, unfined and unfiltered.

So it's probiotic actually, especially the really heavily fruited stuff that you're tasting.

- It drinks a lot like a champagne, I would say, it's kinda what it reminds me of.

Is that in line with- - [Amie] I mean, yeah, you can call my cider champagne all day.

I like that a lot.

- It's a champagne of ciders.

- The champagne of ciders.

So craft cider is kind of the term equal to saying something is a fine wine.

This is not a product that is made quickly.

It's a very long thoughtful process to get it just right.

So our last cider is gonna be Pink is a Feeling.

This is a grape cider hybrid, it's made with Chambourcin, North Carolina grapes, and three different muscadine skins.

So in making really small batch ciders, you can really play around with things and find different flavor profiles that I never thought that cider could make.

- So we've produced over 120 different ciders over the last two years.

- [Woman] Yeah, pretty much.

If you can ferment it, we will.

- [Deric] We have made a 100% pineapple wine.

We've made cherry wine, blueberry wine, blackberry wine, peach wine and we all treat them with different expressions.

So different barrels or different light-handed wine-making nudgings in the right direction.

- We've used honey barrels and maple syrup barrels.

- [indistinct] barrels, [indistinct] barrels sea salt barrels, ex-bourbon maple syrup barrels - [Kether] Gin barrels, rum barrels, whiskey barrels.

- And the barrels themselves give the guideline to how we think when it comes to flavor.

- Each batch is a unique batch and we embrace that here, at Botanist and Barrel.

We like to let the juice guide us in our process and with mixed culture fermentations, your body and your gut are gonna experience some of the same beneficial probiotic qualities of say a jun or a kombucha.

- [Chelsea] After discovering the many ways I can toast to my health, I'm happy to say that even in those complex ciders are easy to enjoy.

Come check them out.

[soft Western music] - Botanist and Barrel, is at 105 Persimmon Hill Lane, in Cedar Grove.

For more information, give them a call at 919-644-7777 or visit them online at botanistandbarrel.com.

They've created some really fun outdoor spaces for people to gather here at the Chatham Beverage District.

And you know, they say, if you wanna get an authentic taste of a town, go where the locals go.

In Manteo one of the places the locals will recommend is the family owned Lost Colony Brewery and Cafe.

- This was a hobby.

This is what we started out with.

This is what we brewed beer in when I first started brewing beer at my house.

And then this is what it all led to.

- [Male Narrator] Paul Charron, went from a five gallon home brewer to a 1000 gallon commercial brewery.

- So you've heard of golf widows, by wife is a beer widow.

[Paul laughs] - [Male Narrator] When Charron and his wife, moved to Manteo in 1989, she started Full Moon Cafe, downtown, expanding it over the years.

He went to work for her in 1995.

- And then back in 2011, I told my wife, I wanted to brew beer for the restaurant, not just for myself.

We made a tiny, tiny little brewery and we were brewing just a couple of beers.

And then as the years went on, beers started going out to other restaurants.

And most restaurants were like, "Well, I'm not selling Full Moon Cafe, beer in my cafe."

So we changed the name to the Lost Colony Brewery and Full Moon Cafe.

And that was confusing for a lot of folks.

- [Male Narrator] So they dropped Full Moon," to make it Lost Colony Brewery and Cafe."

- [Paul] It's a perfect name for the brewery.

- [Male Narrator] And Charron says Manteo is the perfect place for it and the cafe.

- [Paul] It's probably the only true village, if you want to call it that, on the outer banks.

Picket fences, sidewalks, lots and lots of shops.

- [Male Narrator] But there wasn't enough space to grow their brewery.

Charron jumped into his beer response vehicle to show us where he brews his beer now.

The beer response vehicle is for, you know, beer emergencies.

- [Paul] Anytime someone calls for a beer, if it's not on a regular delivery day, we'll jump into beer delivery truck and do it.

We'll go to events, pour beer out the back of it.

Light lights flashing.

We have a good time with it.

- [Male Narrator] The town of Stumpy Point, about a half hour south of Manteo, had everything Sharon needed.

A large building, municipal sewage and a good water supply.

Sharon says, this is the only brewery in the state devoted to true English beers.

- So here we're brewing nothing but British ales, which means our hops, are grain, even our water and our yeast are all exactly the way you would have it over in England.

- [Male Narrator] He does that by importing his grains, hops and yeast from England and adding minerals to the water.

It's served up back at Lost Colony's taproom, and the cafe next door.

His eight beers range from Kitty Hawk Blonde, to an Imperial Stout.

- [Paul] Any style of beer that is British, we make it.

- [Male Narrator] And Charron calls the style of the cafe, pub forward.

That means it's a pub style menu, but with a gourmet twist that surprises many customers.

- They're not expecting the level of food they're gonna get and the surprise in their eyes is like, "Hey the food is really good.

Love your beer.

But the food is really good."

- [Male Narrator] True to the brewery's English spirit, the cafe serves fish and chips.

It's one of the most popular dishes.

This version is made from fresh local flounder.

- We bread that in our house-made breader and then we use our own Lost Colony Beer, our Buxton Brown, to make the beer batter.

- [Male Narrator] It's fried to a golden brown and served atop a pile of fries.

- [Jason] A very simple dish, but very, very good.

- [Male Narrator] Another favorite is the shrimp and grits.

- And we start off with North Carolina green tail shrimp and New Orleans andouille sausage.

And we saute that up and get a nice golden brown on that.

And we add fresh tomatoes, Cuban black beans, fire roasted red peppers.

And then we blend that together with a little bit of cream Parmesan cheese.

- [Male Narrator] It's served on polenta, instead of regular grits.

- [Jason] So it's a shrimp and grits, but it's our version of the shrimp and grits.

- Wonderful hospitality when you come here, everybody's nice.

It really characterizes the happiness and the vibrance of the town.

When you walk in the door.

And to have a good meal with that, it all comes together.

- I love it here.

The people are just wonderful.

They're friendly.

They're courteous.

You know, they're just wonderful people.

Wonderful hospitality and the food is excellent.

- [Male Narrator] Just the experience Charron wants his customers to have.

- I want 'em to relax.

I want them to have fun.

I want them to enjoy themselves.

I want them to have a conversation.

- [Male Narrator] To Charron that means, put your phone down and enjoy the company of those around you.

[soft music] - The Lost Colony Brewery and Cafe, Is at 208 Queen Elizabeth Avenue in Manteo.

For more information, give them a call at 2524836666.

Or visit their website at lastholidaybrewery.com.

It's neat when you're able to take an old space and reinvent it into something people enjoy today.

Like the Chatham Beverage District used to be an old aluminum plant.

Right now, we're heading to Mount Pleasant, and you'd be amazed to see what they've been able to do with an old prison.

[upbeat music] - This prison where we're located, was locally known, as Mount Pleasant Prison.

It was actually the Cabarrus Correctional Facility.

It was opened in 1929, we're co-located beside the department of transportation, because this was the dormitory for the chain gang.

It closed in December of 2011.

- Whiskey and prisons go way back in time.

We had a lot of moonshiners that served time here.

- [Female Narrator] In 2016, they started making small batches of whiskey in the facility.

And lo and behold whiskey prison was born.

America's first distillery behind bars.

- We call this place Whiskey Prison, because it was, a lot of folks often call a barrel a whiskey prison.

And being here, it just seemed to fit.

- [Female Narrator] To get the full experience, visitors have an opportunity to go on the behind the bars tour.

- So all of our tours begin in our chapel.

Which start off, you can take your behind bars pictures and your mugshot while you're down there.

[camera clicks] [upbeat music] - First you'll get to go to manufacturing which is the 1987 for cellblock dorm, where you can see distillation and fermentation and you can see where the prisoners used to sleep.

- It's a little strange walking through a prison facility and then learning about bourbon at the same time.

But it's cool.

It feels a little backwards, it's kinda neat though.

- [Female Narrator] Next stop on the tour, you'll walk across the prison yard to cell blocks East and West where the whiskey is aging with the help from some high decibel music.

[loud music] - We are one of the distillers out there using sonic aging.

- And the idea is the sound waves from [indistinct] the speakers will actually help the liqueur inside the barrel, move in and out of the wood.

And that's essentially increasing the rate that it ages at.

- I have never heard of it in my life.

I just heard Metallica blaring.

And I was like, what is that?

And then she told us about it.

And I thought it was a really cool thing I had never heard of before.

- [Female Narrator] The process they have in place is working well.

After two years, the bourbon they call Conviction, is starting to get attention.

- The nose of Convection, and a lot of folks call it a vanilla bomb, it's got a sweet, very caramel forward nose.

The taste is smooth.

- Probably quite possibly, the best bourbon I've ever had.

So I'll be back.

- Fell in love with it.

It's very smooth.

And to know that you could actually do bourbon in a prison.

That was active up to about maybe about three or four years ago, you know, it drew my interest with it.

- The flavored stuff is even very good, the like pink lemonade.

I'm not a huge flavor kinda guy, pretty much like my, you know, whiskey straight.

So, but all of it was very good.

- I have friends that come in from out of town.

The first thing they say is take me to see your friends at the prison.

And I'm more than happy to bring 'em down and we'll get 'em a tour and they do their tastings.

And it's something that they can go home no matter where you live, when you go back home, you tell people you've been to a prison that makes bourbon and you've got a unique story that nobody else can tell.

[soft joyful music] - Southern Grace Distilleries, is at 130 Dutch Road, in Mount Pleasant.

For more information, call them at 7046226413.

Or visit their website at southerngracedistilleries.com.

This is Starrlight Meadery, one of the many places you can explore while you're out here at the Chatham Beverage District.

And if you enjoy sampling a variety of beverages and venues, you can spend an entire weekend wine hopping in the Hiwassee Highlands.

As you'll see in this Our State Magazine, story.

[soft music] [soft music continues] [indistinct chatter] [glasses clanking] - North Carolina is actually divided into two major areas, as far as wine growing or grape-growing.

The Western part is all mountainous, and the soil conditions are vastly different.

[soft music] - Our tagline that we used on our bottle or our a fanciful name is Fault Rock, because right out here, it's an earthquake fault.

And we're on the uphill side of the fault from the river, and the soil and the rocks that the grapes are growing in, the rock formation are probably some of the oldest on the planet.

They're over 560 million years old and there's no carbon to be found in the rock formations.

So that's all we can [indistinct] know how old it is.

So it's probably some of the oldest material in the world that vines are growing in.

So we'll have a very unique minerality of the wine.

That minerality will be very unique to the profile of the wine of produce here.

You won't find it anywhere else.

[soft music] - Here in this property, we grow five different kinds of grapes.

Although we actually bottled nine different kinds of grapes.

What we have here are [indistinct] Chambourcins, Setval, Catawba, and Cabernet Franc.

We also bottle Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese.

[classic music] With my background in chemistry, I'm always conscious of pesticides and other things that could affect the health of our customers.

So, this winery is unique, in the fact that we play music [indistinct] and some people think that's sort of not very serious but it is.

By playing classical music, you drive the insects off the grapes.

The various vibrations of the music, particularly classical music, provides a background which the insects do not like.

As a result the music drives the insects off the grapes.

That means no pesticides.

And that's important.

I think it's important to our customers, but it's important to everyone.

[soft music] - We strive to produce as natural a product as we can put in the glass from the vineyard, with minimum amount of intervention.

I consider myself more as a wine shepherd than a wine maker because the wine's made in the vineyard, so the good Lord, and the climate, the drawer and everything gives us the wine.

All we can do is just nurture it through the process and hopefully do nothing to harm it and just let the vineyard speak for itself.

- I'd liken making wine to an artist that paints.

Because the wine that comes out of this little winery, is unique.

I made it.

It's what I have done with my own hands.

I grew the grapes.

I made the wine.

I've made it taste the way it does.

And I enjoyed thoroughly when people taste the wine and smile and say, "That is delicious."

You know what more satisfaction can you get out of life than to make something with your own hands and have other people enjoy it.

- If you're interested in a winery hopping weekend away at these vineyards in the upper Hiwassee Highlands, visit the Our State Wine Guide, on their website at ourstate.com.

That's it for tonight show, we'd like to thank the folks at the Chatham Beverage District, for hosting us.

I am sampling the classic, Highway 64, by Chatham Cider Works.

Just one of the many beverages you can try while you're out here.

And if you've missed anything in the program today, just remember, you can always watch us again online at pbsnc.org.

Have a great North Carolina weekend everyone, good night.

[upbeat music] ♪ - [Female Narrator] Funding for North Carolina Weekend, is provided in part by Visit NC.

Dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge, and the Great Smoky Mountains, across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier island beaches.

You're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.