GAINSWave® Treatment in Mount Holly, NC

Muddy River Distillery co-founder Robbie Delaney never thought he’d be able to quit his day job. Now, his rum distillery — the oldest in the Carolinas — is set to more than triple its footprint with a move to Mount Holly.

Delaney and wife Caroline recently purchased the Mount Holly Cotton Mill for $1.3 million. The mill, built in 1875, is the oldest surviving textile mill in Gaston County. It sits on a roughly 4.5-acre parcel at 250 N. Main St. in Mount Holly.

“We got a piece of North Carolina that is just irreplaceable,” he says. “We’ve got the building the town of Mount Holly was named after.”

The couple began saving with expansion in mind in 2019, after changes in North Carolina’s liquor laws allowed for the sale of unlimited bottles and mixed drinks on site. It took 18 months to lock down a property.

Norris Lamb with Premier South represented Muddy River. Taylor Barnes with The Nichols Co. represented the seller.

“We were a store and an educational experience, and now we’re a whole Saturday,” Delaney says. “We just want to hold on to that customer longer.”

They plan to invest roughly $2 million into the first phase of preserving and transforming the historic, 17,000-square-foot building. A separate, 3,000-square-foot building will be added for barrel-aging storage. The goal is to have the facility fully functional by spring 2024 — though Delaney says it could open in phases. That could mean events and festivals on site as early as this fall, for example.

Expect operations to span three floors. There’s a walk-in basement level where the three production stills — named Liberty, Independence and Democracy — will be located. Those stills can produce about 800 gallons, or 1,200 bottles, per operating day.

“We already have all of the equipment we need as far as manufacturing goes,” Delaney says.

One floor up will be a 5,000-square-foot cocktail bar that overlooks the production space. Two private event spaces on the second and third floors will overlook Dutchman’s Creek.

The 3,000-square-foot barrel house will hold around 800 barrels, aged from a week to 8 years old. That’s more than triple the distillery's current capacity. It will double as a wedding venue as well.

The property has over 700 feet of frontage on Dutchman’s Creek. Plans call for events, festivals, markets and concerts — with capacity of up to 4,000, Delaney says.

"It’s way above expectations. Now, I don’t know what’s next,” he says. “To know that space is now ours and I’ve got the rest of our lives to figure it out is huge.”

The Delaneys founded Muddy River in 2011, launching operations in a 500-square-foot space the couple found on Craigslist. By 2013, they had expanded into a 6,100-square-foot space in Belmont. They were sleeping in a tent and operating the still — Freedom — around the clock to keep up with demand. They could produce 35 bottles of rum a day.

This year, Muddy River is on track to produce 5,000 cases — or 60,000 bottles — of its silver, Queen Charlotte’s Reserve, spiced, coconut, coffee and basil rums. Delaney never thought they would outgrow the Belmont space; his ultimate goal is to become the first choice in rum for people in the Carolinas.

“It’s not just a following. It’s a loyal following that knows we make consistently good product. You couldn’t ask for more," he says.

Plans call for the Belmont location to remain open. It's about 10 minutes from the new Mount Holly site.

“I can’t foresee, with the growth trajectory we have, giving it up,” Delaney says. “This is a good spot for us, too.”

Today, Governor Roy Cooper announced appointments to North Carolina boards and commissions.

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the North Carolina Appraisal Board:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the North Carolina State Board of Architecture and Registered Interior Designers:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the North Carolina Arts Council:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the North Carolina Advisory Committee on Cancer Coordination and Control:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the Carteret Community College Board of Trustees:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the Catawba Valley Community College Board of Trustees:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the Central Piedmont Community College Board of Trustees:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the Edenton Historical Commission:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the North Carolina Council on Educational Services for Exceptional Children:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the North Carolina State Board of Registered Environmental Health Specialist Examiners:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individuals to the Financial Literacy Council:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individuals to the North Carolina Human Relations Commission:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the North Carolina Interagency Council for Coordinating Homeless Programs:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the North Carolina Board of Landscape Architects:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the North Carolina Board of Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselors:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual chair of the North Carolina Military Affairs Commission:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual chair of the North Carolina Museum of Art Board of Trustees:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the North Carolina Parks and Recreation Authority:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the University of North Carolina Center for Public Media Board of Trustees:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the North Carolina State Health Coordinating Council:

Gov. Cooper has appointed the following individual to the Vance-Granville Community College Board of Trustees:

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MOUNT HOLLY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Forgive me if this sounds like half-baked culinary wisdom, but sometimes life is like a classic recipe.

Timmy O’Shea of Mount Holly has a healthy appetite for life and cooking.

“Because it’s fun to cook dinner,” the teen explained, whipping up tacos and brownies in the kitchen. “I enjoy doing fun stuff.”

The recipe for any teen’s success is often only as good as its ingredients, including family, friends, and mentors like Amber Radford. Timmy has a developmental disability and Amber’s a community worker with One on One Care, Inc.

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“He always makes the best of every day,” says Amber, who’s worked with Timmy for seven years. “So, any time that he is around you, you are just happy no matter what.”

On this day, Amber guided him in the kitchen.

“So today Timmy and I are doing a cooking lesson. He got to pick the menu yesterday,” said Radford.

“Because I can cook tacos and brownies!” O’Shea said with enthusiasm.

In the process, he’s built a strong foundation of life skills.

Recently, O’Shea was one of five winners of the “Yes, I Can Award” presented by the North Carolina Council for Exceptional Children. He was honored in the Independent Living category. Radford nominated him for the award.

“Getting really close to Timmy and being his worker and seeing him do all that growth academically, physically, socially, life skills… in all the areas just really puts a smile on my face,” she said.

“It feels amazing!” O’Shea exclaimed.

When they began working together, he was 12 and really shy.

“He’s a social butterfly,” Radford said of the young man today. “Nothing really gets him down and he’s up for literally trying anything.”

Outings together help boost his confidence. We tagged along as Amber took him on an educational bargain-hunting spree at the Rose’s Discount store in Belmont.

“Alright, what are we getting first?” Radford asks, prompting O’Shea as he looks at the shopping list she created. “He’s practicing a lot of money skills, obviously, and also following a list.”

“One, we’re done,” says Timmy, checking a box and moving on to the next item.“Card for Coach Kevin and Heather.”

Next up, gifts for Timmy’s Special Olympics bowling coaches.

“You are a really great coach,” he said, reading a greeting card.

Radford says there was once a time when he’d hardly speak to anyone at a store.

“You can make progress; it just may take a little time,” she told Queen City News. “I love that he’s the face of that, and that he’s that example for others.”

You can’t really put a value on their adventures… even when it’s as simple as making tacos.

“He needs life skills,” said Radford. “And working on getting him to do skills such as cooking, and safety awareness, and going on interviews and things like that that are really going to help him.”

“Taco Tuesday somewhere!” O’Shea says.

He still has much to learn. But he can also teach us something that transcends the kitchen.

“You can also learn to go with the flow and to adapt to life. And you can also just learn to be happy,” said Radford.

That’s both a recipe and the secret to life rolled into one.

“Delicious!” O’Shea says with pride.

Surf temperatures at the Jersey Shore should be approaching their annual peak about now, but on Thursday afternoon they were more appropriate to October than the hottest period of the year.

And they could stay that way into the weekend, said Cameron Wunderlin, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly.

“We’ve just been seeing really strong upwelling,” he said, referring to what happens when the warmer surface layers are replaced by the colder waters below.

This one got underway last week when the water temperatures off Atlantic City dropped from 77.7 degrees to 64.6 degrees in a 12-hour period from late on July 19 into July 20, then plummeted to 56.5 last Friday.

Temperatures rebounded somewhat during the weekend afternoons but have been hovering just above 60 degrees most of the time since Monday, according to the government’s official gauge. Normal for late July is 70 degrees, a level not reached since that night of the 19th.

“This is as long as I can remember temperatures like this,” said Jim Eberwine, longtime weather service marine specialist who now is the emergency management coordinator for Absecon.

» READ MORE: The heat wave is generating cold waves at the Jersey Shore as ocean temperatures take a plunge

The upwelling event was set off by the same winds from the South that baked the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast in the most intense heat wave of the season, which finally broke on Tuesday. Philadelphia set two temperature records, and so far at least five heat-related deaths have been reported.

Those steady winds, working in tandem with the spin of the Earth, chased the top warm layers farther offshore, making the cold water below an unwelcome summer replacement, said Michael Crowley, with the Rutgers University Center for Ocean Observing Leadership.

Upwelling events are common, pointed out Andrew Allegra, with the National Centers for Environmental Information. “We see this every summer at the Atlantic City location,” he said. And the chill isn’t record-level: Eberwine said surf temperatures dropped to 49 degrees during the blistering summer of 1988.

But this one has been particularly vigorous and persistent, Eberwine added.

After that break Tuesday as the winds took a northerly turn, the heat has made a modest comeback, and winds have been been blowing from a more southerly direction again.

Eberwine noted that surf temperatures also were below normal off the coasts of Long Island and North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

The winds are due to reverse direction again by Saturday with the passage of a front, but don’t expect the waters to respond immediately, said the weather service’s Wunderlin. Even with Tuesday’s cooldown and wind shift, the surf remained chilly.

Water responds more ponderously to changes than does the air, said Wunderlin, so it is possible the surf will remain on the cool side Saturday, and perhaps even Sunday: “It could take a few days.”

MOUNT HOLLY, N.C. (FOX 46 CHARLOTTE) — Park expansions, greenways, and creek crossings could all be built in Mount Holly, but not without a cost.

It would cost the City of Mount Holly more than $13 million, but it would also cost one retired couple 35 years worth of memories. A stretch of homes on East Catawba Avenue would be torn down to expand a portion of Veterans Park.

Tina and Jeff Starnes got married in April of 1986 and by May, they moved into their home on East Catawba Avenue.

“We raised three kids here. You know, this is where everybody comes for their holiday meals and stuff,” Jeff Starnes said.

The City of Mount Holly reached out to the Starnes in the Fall of 2019, when the Park Bond plans were just getting started.

“We told them, we were not interested in selling at all, we had no interest in it, so we’d never, never discussed moving or any of that stuff,” Jeff said.

Close to a year later, the city made them an offer for their home based on the tax value rather than the market value. According to Zillow, the tax value of the Starnes’ home is far less than the current market value.

“We’re for parks in the city and the greenways, all the greenways. And, you know, we really enjoy it. We’ve taken part in the process and have gone to the planning meetings and stuff like that. We just never dreamed that they would do number one, you know, take our house from us,” Jeff said.

But nothing is for sure yet, it’s all based off of the outcome of the Park Bond on the November Ballot. The Mount Holly community has the power to vote yes or no, which would increase property taxes by about seven percent.

“Looking like a lot of the older people like us are not wanting higher taxes,” Tina Starnes said.

So although the Starnes want Mount Holly to become a better city to live in, they don’t want it to be at their expense. Jeff gave the city a number he would feel comfortable selling his home for, but still hasn’t gotten a response.

“We have roots here, I have trees that are as old when my kids brought home from Earth Day. We have our pets buried in the backyard.”

If the Park Bond does pass, five projects will be completed throughout Mount Holly, including new creek crossings, trails, and the expansion of Veterans Park.

For more information on the Bond, visit this link.