CHARLESTON, SC – Here’s a funding story you won’t find hard to swallow. SC Launch, an affiliate of SCRA, has invested $200,000 in Chareston firm Terressentia, a company that has developed a technology to make high quality distilled spirits for retailers and private brand owners.

A group led by Earl D. Hewlette, a Columbia, SC native with an MBA and law degree from the University of South Carolina, founded Terressentia in 2007.  Hewlette is president and CEO of the company.

“These funds will expand our sales and marketing efforts, enabling us to achieve more market recognition of the way our patented technology can dramatically improve the purity and flavor of distilled spirits at a very low relative cost,” Hewlette says.

“Utilizing sophisticated engineering technology, Terressentia’s innovative process enables an acceleration of traditional fermentation and filtering, which produces a very high quality product in real time,” said Dave McNamara, SC Launch executive director. “This company is applying its award-winning chemical engineering processes to support the hospitality industry in South Carolina as well as its national and international clients.”

The company is also involved in a College of Charleston chemistry research project. Students are working with different methods of chemical analysis, including gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and solid phase microextraction  to find and measure the traces of flavor-producing molecules found in the Terressentia vodka product.

We wonder if they need any taste testers for these projects?

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Tags: Charleston, distilling process, financing, SC, SC Launch, SCRA, Terressentia