Shout-out to Canada’s Women Distillers

We’ve compiled a list of some of the women distillers who help make the artisan scene in Canada vibrant.

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News, Events & Openings

In the News

Spirit Awards for Blind Tasters

At Niagara College in Ontario, students in the country’s first college-level Artisan Distilling program competed late last year to develop the kind of skills coveted by our own Canadian Artisan Spirit Competition. During the first annual Spirit Awards at the Canadian Food & Wine Institute, they competed in a blind-tasting challenge of four-spirit flights each of London dry, Ontario, contemporary, signature botanical and flavoured gins. Students applied sensory evaluation training to choose winners in each category.

Do you conduct blind-tasting and comparative-tasting sessions with your staff? Here are some spirits sensory evaluation tools, from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust, the Society of Wine Educators and a Canadian Whisky Tasting Wheel from Pernod-Ricard WhiskyDoc, Dr. Don Livermore, to help get you started.

Vancouver Island Forges a New Trail

The new Vancouver Island Spirit Path invites tourists and locals into the distilleries that define five regions of the Island, providing maps and routes for each. Tourism Vancouver Island partnered on the slick website, which includes on-point socially responsible imbibing and B.C. Craft information for consumers.

Events + Openings

Events

  • January 15–26: Tribute to Craft Spirits Festival brings together B.C. and Alberta distilleries in Lake Louise and Banff, culminating in a two-day street festival of tasting on the second weekend.

  • February 23: Rig Hand’s Geoff Stewart continues with a series of Distilling 101 workshops, an introduction to mashing, fermenting, distilling and dilution/flavouring in Nisku, Alberta.

  • April 4: BC Distilled in Vancouver. 40 Artisan Distilleries will showcase their spirits at Canada’s largest artisan distillery festival.

  • April 6–8: American Distilling Institute’s 2020 Craft Spirits Conference and Vendor Expo lands in New Orleans.

Openings

Industry News

Reinventing Spirits

What if you set out to distill a completely innovative product, and end up creating a new spirits category in the process? It happens: here’s how.

The Globe and Mail  published a story about (behind a paywall) Distillerie Shefford and Distillerie du St. Laurent in Quebec, two artisan producers experimenting with distilling maple syrup, into an entirely new spirit they’re calling acérum (the Latin word for maple), and have formed the Union des Distillateurs de Spiritueux d'Érable (Association of Maple Spirit Distillers).

Internationally, B.C. entrepreneur Matt O’Brien is a co-founder of a Chilean-based distillery producing Träkál, a spirit infused with unique flavours from Patagonia. Distilled on an apple and pear base (like a brandy), infused with botanicals (like a gin), it has certain kinship with spirits like akvavit, too. It’s so unique that is some countries where it’s stocked, it has its own spirits classification. Read about it in a recent Fortune article.

Openings and Events

Meet Your New Colleagues

La distillerie des Appalaches opened in Levis, Quebec in July. “Our first product, Kepler Gin,  already won gold at this year’s Gin Masters award in London,” says CEO Dave Ricard, calling Kepler a “grain-to-bottle contemporary gin” on a corn, barley and rye base, with fresh fruits and Boreal herbs. The distillery is currently oak aging a maple rum.

Wiseacre Farm Distillery, located at the Caldwell Heritage Farm in South Kelowna, expects to open this month. A well-known name in the local food scene, the farm hosted the 11th annual Okanagan Feast of Fields this past August.

The Banff Whisky Experience (September 13–14) brings more than 70 distilleries (including several Canadian artisan producers) to the mountain paradise this month, including a Sunset Terrace named after Banff’s Park Distillery.