Booze Yongehurst Distillery’s locavore hooch
Two Torontonians keep the liquor strictly local at Yongehurst Distillery
There’s a small-batch-spirits boom in Ontario right now, being fuelled by independent distillers selling local takes on whiskey, gin and vodka. Rather than chasing the same potential customers, Toronto’s Yongehurst Distillery is experimenting with niche spirits few other North American upstarts are attempting to produce, such as triple sec, shochu and amaro. Thirtysomething pals Rocco Panacci (a software developer) and John-Paul Sacco (a general contractor) launched the business last summer in a Davenport industrial unit, without quitting their day jobs.
A locavorist passion drives the pair’s project, with an emphasis on using ingredients grown and foraged in the GTA. Sacco’s apple tree provided the fruit for one of Yongehurst’s first efforts, an apple brandy. Panacci grows botanicals for infusing—such as wormwood, hyssop and anise—in the backyard of his home near Danforth and Greenwood, making him almost as much gardener as distiller. They’ve plucked elderflower, burdock and juniper from Crown lands in the 905.
There are easier ways to make money in the distilling business than by planting and harvesting your own ingredients. “It’s time consuming,” Panacci says, “but almost therapeutic.”