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The Point Distillery in Pasco County has been contracted to produce a new rum called Crossfire Hurricane created by the oft-proclaimed world’s greatest rock band, The Rolling Stones.
According to a statement from the Pasco County Economic Development Council Tuesday, the distillery will carry out the entire bottling process at its 11807 Little Road facility in New Port Richey for the band and its partners.
This includes setting the bottling line up for production, filling the bottles, completing the packaging by attaching the corks and labeling and sealing the bottles with a capsule over the cork, says the EDC. The products will then be packed into display cases ready for shipment to distributors.
Crossfire Hurricane, whose name comes from the opening line of the song "Jumping Jack Flash," was announced earlier this month, a few days before the band of aging-yet-agile rock stars announced a new U.S. tour for 2024 and not long after it released its first studio album in 18 years.
Lauren Miceli, a spokesperson for the EDC, says in an email that new bottling equipment is expected to arrive at The Point this week and installed next week. The first batch of Crossfire Hurricane is expected to be released by the end of December.
To date, The Point is the only distillery bottling the product.
“Based on the initial announcement huge volumes are anticipated,” she says. “The Rolling Stones U.S. tour announcement has amped up the fan base and has further amplified the hype around the product."
The rum can be preordered online and is expected to hit shelves in certain states early next year.
The band first fell in love in with rum and the Caribbean in the 1970s when it was recording Goats Head Soup in Jamaica, and to this day Mick Jagger and Keith Richards spend time there when not touring. The Stones are partnering with Universal Music and Socio Ventures on the rum. The band, Universal and Socio say in a separate statement that the rum was born from that experience and “encapsulates the edgy and timeless spirit of the band.”
“This precisely blended liquid includes rum aged for up to five years in charred oak barrels, giving it a golden hue and imparting a depth of complexity and character that makes it ideal to sip on its own or stand out in a wide variety of cocktails.”
The Point Distillery opened in 2018 on the site of a former distillery after owner and CEO Spencer Wolf and his partners invested $1.3 million in the space. The facility is about 30,000 square feet and sits on six acres.
In August, the Pasco County Commission approved an agreement restructuring the company’s existing equipment loan, adding an additional $150,000 to purchase an automatic filling machine which accommodates specialty bottling capability, Miceli says in the email.
The funding is available through Penny for Pasco and brings the total amount of the loan from the county to $239,582.
The Rolling Stones began playing together in 1962 and are one of the best-known rock and roll bands on the planet, selling more than 200 million albums over 60 years. While the band members are at or near 80 years old, they continue to sell out stadiums worldwide, last playing in the region in Tampa Oct. 29, 2021, and scheduled to play in Orlando next year.
And rum is not The Rolling Stones only connection to the area.
Jagger confirmed at the 2021 Tampa show that the band wrote its signature song, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," in 1965 while sitting poolside at the Fort Harrison Hotel, then known as Jack Tar Harrison Hotel, in Clearwater.
The story is that Richards woke up in the middle of the night with the instantly recognizable opening riff in his head, turned on a tape recorder and played it before falling back asleep. He and Jagger wrote the rest of the song the next day.
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