Strathcona Spirits: Edmonton's first distillery opens

Before Adam Smith could start creating spirits in Edmonton's first liquor distillery, he had to travel deep into the Missouri Mountains to make a deal with a solitary stillmaker.

The logistically challenging quest to the end of the Ozarks was just one of the obstacles to bringing the ancient craft back to life in Alberta's capital city.

"The challenges of opening of a distillery, there are many," said Smith, the owner and founder of Strathcona Spirits, which officially opened for business at 10122 81st Avenue this week.

"I never knew whether it would take off, but I was just inspired to start a distillery."

Though the company got its bottles on liquor on store shelves for the first time Thursday, the business has been in the works for years.

Smith had previously been operating the distillery space off Whyte Avenue as a music venue called Baby Seal Club, but he feared the business wouldn't survive in the long term.

"We had bands coming in and playing and we were jamming and it got a bit of a following as an arts space," Smith said. "But we realized it wasn't going to be a sustainable thing."

Smith got the idea for a distillery in Edmonton from a trip to Vancouver. 

"They were making really nice stuff in a very small space, and I thought, 'I wonder if we can do this?'" He said.

• Council votes to scrap distance limit between liquor stores in suburbs
• All day 'happy hour' on tap at Alberta liquor establishments

It was a case of perfect timing. Just as Smith was mulling his future as a master distiller, the province clawed back regulations which had kept the industry cloistered for decades.

Before 2013, licensed distilleries had to produce at least 2,500 hectolitres of alcohol a year — an insurmountable volume for small craft distilleries to handle.

With the barrier gone, Smith got to work researching the skills of the trade and touring distilleries across north America to hone his business plan. Although he had experience with beer at Steamwhistle and Big Rig Craft Distillery in Nisku, his experience with spirits was relatively slim.

A road trip, a shooting range, and a handshake

Smith was licensed to manufacture spirits in December of 2014 and was granted federal licence in the beginning of 2015, but there was plenty of grunt work involved in passing those regulatory hurdles. 

Finding the right equipment to retrofit his small storefront proved to be one of the biggest challenges.

He had to search far and wide to find someone capable of building him a custom-made still just the right size for his first batches of booze.

"The craft distilling movement in the Unites States and parts of Europe is exploding, so buying equipment in a place that has other distillers or a robust industry, it's competitive," Smith said.

After months of searching, Smith found his man in backwoods of south eastern Missouri.

"We drove around 10,000 kilometres with the trailer to pick up 6,000 pounds of equipment."

After meeting with their affable host — who wouldn't let them leave without an impromptu trip to the shooting range to fire some semi-automatic weapons — they sealed the deal with a firm handshake and headed home.

'It was up to us to create a good product'

Getting the monster piece of metal in place was a challenge.

Not only was the still more than 1,800 kilograms heavier than expected, but it was also about a half-metre taller than the ceiling.

They managed to lift it by hand inside the building, but had to relocate to the centre of the room to squeeze it in.

• Sherbrooke Liquor Store named Alberta's best bottle shop
• All brewers now taxed $1.25 per litre sold in Alberta

So far, Strathcona Spirits has released two products: a single grain wheat vodka from hard red wheat that is grown 23 kilometres south of the distillery, and a gin which is made from wild foraged juniper from the red river valley in the badlands near Drumheller.

They plan to start barrel-aging whisky in the new year.

"We kept thinking, 'Oh, something will happen where we are not allowed to do this, something will stop us,'" Smith said. "But one by one, these barriers were removed. We just knocked them down, one after another.

"One by one, it became a reality and then it was up to us to create a good product."

Strathcona Spirits' product can be found at Keg n Cork, Color de Vino, Sherbrooke Liquor and the Chateau Louis Liquor Store.

"This is the first distillery in eternity in the capital of Alberta," Smith said. "It's on shelves, and we're getting a wonderful reception."