Our Story

A rum distillery in Devon, built from scratch by two people whose first date was a rum tasting.

The idea was born in Vancouver and brought to life in 2019, when husband and wife team Russ and Gemma Wakeham came home to build a distillery in Devon, just outside Exeter. Rum has been there from the start. Their first date was a rum tasting, and their honeymoon was St Lucia.

The name is from the song Gemma walked down the aisle to. Moon River: "Two drifters, off to see the world."

Gemma tells the story and builds the brand. Russ makes the rum. Before the distillery he spent his career in chemistry research on carbon capture, storage and utilisation, finding ways to take CO2 out of the air and give it real value.

CO2 is invisible, and that is exactly the problem. Plastic on a beach is impossible to ignore. Carbon in the sky looks like nothing at all, which makes it easy to overlook and easier still to do nothing about. Russ has spent his working life trying to make that invisible problem visible. Two Drifters is that work, in a glass.

So we make rum from scratch in Devon, molasses to bottle, in an all electric distillery, and every bottle is carbon negative. That claim is independently verified, not a marketing line, and we are a certified B Corp. If you want the detail, we have published exactly how it works.

"It won't be our rum, or our business, that hurts the planet."

Russ Wakeham, co founder

The best way to understand what we do is to see it. We are just outside Exeter, and watching rum being made from scratch will tell you more than any page on this website.