News

News

  • Alberta’s Two Pine Ventures launched a crowdfunding campaign to build two “destination distilleries” in Okotoks and Bragg Creek, Shares in the distilleries start at $250 and the company seeks to raise more than $3 million through crowdfunding.

  • This past summer the Manitoba government announced support for small liquor producers by reducing and streamlining markup rates, as reported by a Winnipeg Sun story. And in New Brunswick, a 10-month pilot program started, allowing craft beverage alcohol producers like breweries, distilleries, cideries and wineries to sell each other’s products, without remitting markup to the province.

  • Fortune reported that U.S. craft distillers have lost an estimated $700 million in sales due to the pandemic.

  • Spirits brand incubator Distill Ventures (which is supported by Diageo) virtually held its first New World Whisky Summit in September and published The New World of New World Whisky whitepaper, free for download.

  • In other whisky news, industry site Seven Fifty Daily reported on Ireland’s Waterford Distillery’s experiments in proving the terroir of whisky, and on U.S. distillers looking to define American single malt.

Awards

Niagara College’s distillery program won a bronze at the U.S. Open Whiskey and Spirits Championships for its School Spirits Small Batch Rum.

The Newfoundland Distillery’s Seaweed Gin won a gold and its Cloudberry Gin won a silver medal at the blind-tasted New York International Spirit Competition.

Events

The Cornucopia festival in Whistler, B.C., is happening as a live event in November, with physically distanced tastings and stringent safety measure in place. Seminars include a Canadian Craft Gin tasting supported by ADC and a Best of B.C. Craft Spirits tasting supported by BC Distilled, plus other spirits-related events.

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Among the virtual tasting events this year at the Spirit of Toronto Festival, a Virtual Warehouse Experience will host 15 whisky makers sharing cask samples from their warehouses. Tickets include a tasting kit and distilleries range from Zuidam in Holland to Heaven Hill in Kentucky, Leopold Brothers in Colorado and Springbank in Scotland.






ADC Update: Our Purpose and Goals

Artisan Distillers Canada was launched in February of this year, following the release of results of the 2019 Canadian Artisan Spirit Competition. Since then, we’ve continued to develop plans for other programs, some of which I’ve outlined below. These programs are designed to fulfil the following goals:

  1. Provide distillers will programs and tools to grow their markets.

  2. Create opportunities to share ideas and best practices.

  3. Help to foster a sense of community amongst distillers across the country.

2019 Recap

  • ADC Membership: About 50 distilleries from across the country have joined ADC. Our goal remains to build membership value to ensure it’s an easy, inexpensive decision to join.

  • Newsletter: We have published a newsletter every month since February, and grown our audience by about 50 per cent.

  • CASC: Entries into the 2019 Canadian Artisan Spirit Competition (CASC), which published its results in February, grew by about 40 per cent over the inaugural year in 2018. CASC also expanded to include branding and bitters categories.

What’s in Store for 2020?

  • CASC results: Results will be announced on Wednesday, February 5, 2020.

  • ADC Spirits Panel: Do you have a new product, or one on which you’re not sure you’ve hit the mark? In spring 2020 we’ll be launching a Spirits Panel from which you can get an in-depth, no-holds-barred evaluation of your spirits by a team of industry experts and enthusiasts.

  • Artisan Distillers Conference: Save the date! On November 2–3, 2020, we’ll be hosting Canada’s first conference created exclusively for artisan distillers! In January we’ll run a survey to get some ideas on what (and who) you’d like to see, but you don’t have to wait — drop us a line with your ideas.

  • I’m going on tour: I’ll be traveling to Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia to try to visit as many distilleries as possible over 10 days in June.

  • Artisan Distillers seal? The results of our November-issue poll were quite supportive of the idea of implementing a national seal indicating that your distillery is locally-owned and distills its own spirits. We’re going to continue working on this, and will solicit more feedback as the idea develops.