Moonshine distiller relocates to airport

A distiller who specializes in Alberta moonshine hopes his product will quench more parched throats after moving to Edmonton International Airport from Vegreville.

“The future really was getting to the international airport. Rural Alberta is extremely difficult to start a business,” Red Cup Distillery coowner Rob de Groot said Monday.

“In Edmonton it’s night and day … Things move twice as fast for half the price.”

He and his wife Barb de Groot opened their craft distillery in the town 100 km east of Edmonton about three years ago, but he said the new location will give them better access to potential export markets.

They spent $230,000 renovating a 500-square-metre former air supply building north of the air terminal and have their eyes on selling their “wheat shine” in the United States, China and other countries, Rob de Groot said.

Distributing the product through the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission is difficult, especially with stiff competition, so foreign sales are a path to growth, he said.

The facility, stocked with Edmonton-made copper pot stills that have a total capacity of roughly 5,000 litres, expects many more visitors sampling what de Groot compares to a sipping whisky he hopes they’ll sell in their home countries.

“People want to taste the liquor before they buy it. It’s about $33 a bottle.”

De Groot, who has a new product coming out this fall, won’t say how much they sell each year, saying only that with the move “we’re still losing money, but less.”