Distilleries in N.S. alive with spirit
Products with unique taste, character
Nova Kitchen explores emerging trends in food and wine culture in Nova Scotia.
“Nova Scotia has a huge, huge history of moonshine,” remarks Owen Ritchie of Still Fired Distillery. “It hits home to a lot of people.”
Bootlegging, rum running, and, yes, moonshine have truly imbued Nova Scotia culture and history, periodically swashing against temperance and prohibition movements, like the ebb and flow of the tide. Now, a bit more than a simple resurgence of distilling moonshine, among other flavourful ethanols, has flooded the province with fine local spirits. This time, they’re legal.
“Glenora was the first distillery that’s still open,” said Ritchie, “but Iron Works has paved the way for what is going on now in Nova Scotia.”
Glenora Distillery’s Glen Breton Rare 8 Year Old, a single malt whisky, sold out shortly after hitting the shelves in 2000. But the success of places like Iron Works Distillery, Owen’s Still Fired, Caldera Distillery and Steinhart Distillery have a lot in common with the moonshine and corn mash culture of yesteryear, including the fact that these operations span the province in rural areas and small towns. Micro distilling is one sector of rapid economic growth in the province notably not centred on Halifax, something of note given Ivany Report imperatives.
At Caldera in River John the wheat fields actually lie adjacent to the distillery.
“We grow our own grain, right on the distillery property,” states Caldera.
The website emphasizes how not only seed selection and cultivation, but also all fermentation, distillation and maturation takes place in River John. Arisaig’s Steinhart uses “only the best quality Maritime grown winter wheat” and “best Nova Scotian spring water,” while at Coldstream Clear Distillery in Stewiake the vodka features “one hundred per cent Canadian grain” and their own Panacea Natural Artesian Spring Water.
As an article in The Atlantic observed a few years ago, the micro distilling and moonshine movement in the United States has occurred “mostly in big cities and micropolitan towns,” while in Nova Scotia it’s a different story.
“We do a lot of farmers’ markets,” Ritchie tells us, which is also true for many of the other distilleries.
We’ve been seeing the Iron Works booth at the Yarmouth Farmer’s Market for a few years now. Local spirits attract a “wide range of customers,” according to Still Fired. “Nova Scotia has a lot of diverse cultures in it: fisheries, forestry, and the city.”
These spirits also truly represent Nova Scotia. “You have to ferment and distill on site,” quips Ritchie from his new production warehouse across from his family’s country store in the Annapolis Valley on the theme of what represents an authentic distillery.
“One hundred per cent of everything we produce here is fermented and distilled on site.”
Pierre Guevremont of Lunenburg’s Iron Works agrees.
“We believe in doing the product from the ground up, all of our own fermenting, all of our own barrel ageing, all of our own double distilling.”
Distillers do a lot to make sure their products have unique character. Ritchie says: “We actually use three different yeasts and ferment out three different mashes, distill each off separately, and them blend them together.”
He explains that each yeast lends “a different flavour. Some are fruit forward, some are a little spicy.”
Guevremont and his partner Lynne MacKay of Iron Works, founded in 2009, pioneered the emphasis on local fruit in what he defines as “artisan distilling.” Like all other Nova Scotia distilleries making rum, the sugar or molasses base is imported, but “everything else on the fruit end of things is sourced as locally as we can do it,” says Guevremont.
The website observes: “Our vodka is made from Nova Scotia apples, and is unique in Canada. Our gin includes local juniper berries and numerous Nova Scotia sourced botanicals, including rosehips from a hedge down the street.
“Our Pear-eau-de-vie with a pear in the bottle is perhaps the product that best reflects our commitment to local ingredients.” What allowed this rising tide of micro (and now not so micro) distilled invention was, of course, a change in the laws. We well remember initiating a plebiscite in Yarmouth Municipality around 1999 to turn the area from “dry” to “wet” for alcohol production purposes. We won in a landslide, but unfortunately never fulfilled our idea for a micro distillery.
After building and opening Trout Point Lodge in 2000 we discovered – to our great dismay – that although Argyle Municipality was “wet,” our little village of East Kemptville was “dry” thanks to a special local vote many years ago, meaning no licence. We had to get the Alcohol and Gaming Authority had to hold a public hearing to grant the lodge a special premise permit. The vestiges of prohibition lingered on well into this century. At that time, the official attitude toward alcohol unduly complicated the establishment of innovative businesses.
That has changed. “Nova Scotia has some of the best laws in Canada for distilling,” states Ritchie, which “makes it a lot easier to get your product to the consumer.” And this, in turn, means a viable rural business.
“Growth has been fantastic,” said Guevremont. For most, that growth has so far been provincewide, but with a growing reputation elsewhere. Asked where he sees Nova Scotia distilling headed, Guevremont said he sees the province developing “unique, inspired products that will be well received around the world,” though he also notes: “many of us are selling only in Nova Scotia, and are not interested, including ourselves, in making a big splash internationally.”
Not so for Ritchie and his partner Andrew Cameron at Still Fired, who told us they sell everything they produce and are expanding. “On July 1, we moved across the road to a 4,500 square foot warehouse that we took over, upping our production,” including a 2,000 litre stripping still that’s being built. “We’re, looking to start exporting within six months,” concludes Ritchie.