The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
N.S. Spirit Co. sweetens holdings
Annapolis Cider bought by Blue Lobster maker
“We were enamoured of the growth of Blue Lobster and Nova Scotia Spirit Company and asked how do you blast off like that. The rest is history.”
Sean Myles
Co-owner, Annapolis Cider Company
Alex Rice’s booze empire now spans from Stellarton to Wolfville.
Rice, co-founder of the staggeringly successful Nova Scotia Spirit Company and its Blue Lobster brand, has acquired the Annapolis Cider Company, reaching a deal with husbandand-wife owners Sean Myles and Gina Haverstock.
The deal originated in a visit made to the Stellarton factory by the operators of Church Brewing in Wolfville, just down the street, who told Myles and Haverstock they had to go check it out.
“We always like to make visits to different facilities around the province to learn new things, and they were an obvious candidate because they have quite a place up there in Stellarton,” Myles said.
“So I reached out to say
I’d like to come up and take a look, and Alex Rice wrote back and said he was going to be in the valley ... so he visited the cidery and we just started chatting and one thing led to another.
“We were enamoured of the growth of Blue Lobster and Nova Scotia Spirit Company and asked how do you blast off like that. The rest is history.”
Negotiations went quickly, from start to finish in 2021, but Haverstock said that when the couple opened their doors five years ago, there was no plan to build a business to sell.
“The whole intention was to build and give back to our community,” she said.
“We always felt like the valley had wonderful fruit around, and we felt so fortunate to have jobs here in Nova Scotia, the valley specifically. And we thought we had the expertise to make an impact and start a business.”
Across Canada last year, Nova Scotia Spirit Company sold more than 10 million cans of Blue Lobster, its ready-to drink product, and has plans for expansion beyond that.
Myles said he and Haverstock felt their product and the expertise of Rice’s company would be “a really great combination.”
“They see the world through different eyes than us because of their size and rapid growth,” he said.
“Conversations with Alex reveal that world to you, what the potential is for your brand; it’s very exciting, and that’s the lure. Gina and I have the capability to be small-business owners who take a business to a certain size, but we’re not delusional. We don’t think we could take it to the size of a Blue Lobster kind of brand. They operate at a different level, and we admire that level.”
Annapolis Cider employs a core staff of four or five, and full-time equivalents of eight to 10. Myles and Haverstock said they’re satisfied the deal will be best for those workers and for Wolfville.
Even though liquor sales across the board have risen during the pandemic, Myles said it’s been a challenging time.
“Gina and I have only been small-business owners for five years, and it’s sort of our side hustle,” he said.
“We’ve really come to recognize the role that businesses play in the community and how important is it, and how challenging it can be, to make sure you’re still feeding the families you’re responsible for.”
The couple said there’s been no indication the new owners plan to change how the ciders are made, or how they taste, they just plan to make a lot more of it and sell it more broadly.
“Nothing would make us prouder than to be in some other part of the country after the pandemic and see a can or a bottle of Annapolis Cider Company,” Haverstock said.
The apples that become cider are pressed locally and the juice then goes to the cidery, where it is processed. Talks have already started about capacity.
“Right now there is definitely room to grow, with the tanks we have at the cidery,” said Haverstock.
The value of the deal has not been disclosed.
Haverstock is the head winemaker at Jost, Gaspereau and Mercator vineyards, and Myles is an associate professor in the faculty of agriculture at Dalhousie. They also have two young children, but without a business to run, the immediate plan is to “put our feet up at the cottage.”