By John Allaire W e were living in Vancouver and I was an underwater welder and a deep-sea diver by trade. However, I had a bad accident riding motocross and that retired me from my diving career on the spot. I shattered everything from my knees down. I was in a wheelchair for months… pretty much a nightmare,” explained Josh. At this point, distilling hadn’t really entered into the McLafferys’ minds as something they’d like to do to shift gears. Jen was carrying the couple’s first child and they were struggling to figure out the next move. One thing Josh was still able to do was weld up on dry land. So to make ends meet, he would pick up welding jobs here and there. Enter into the story a few local moonshiners who needed some welding done on their stills. One mountain man in particular walked in with a still that was the size of most commercial ones, looking for Josh to do some work on it. “So I got it all fixed up and it looked great. And he said, ‘Awesome! But I don’t have any money to pay you’… So I looked at him and was getting a bit upset. And he said, ‘I have something better for you,’ and he produced a five-gallon bucket. I thought it was going to be moonshine or some- thing, but it was molasses! I thought, what the hell do I want with molasses? He told me I could distill it and make rum. Josh took the bucket of molasses and let it sit in the house for a while as a constant reminder of a business lesson learned — beware of the bad debt! However, a couple of months passed and one evening the couple finally grew tired of staring at the molasses and decided to give rum-distilling a try. They took a small copper still they had kicking around from one of Josh’s welding projects, fired it up, and made a spiced rum. “It was absolutely phenomenal. And the light- bulb clicked on. So you could actually say that the village idiot who didn’t have enough money to pay me for a welding job was directly responsible for us starting a distillery. Two years later, here we are!” chuckles Josh. They may not be accepting business advice from the village idiot anymore, but sourcing locally plays a large role in Monashee’s philosophy. “We try to source everything we can within 100 miles of Revelstoke. Obviously, we can’t get everything Well I didn’t know how to distill anything!!”
Life’s path can take hard turns when you least expect it. Those lemons can be left to rot, or one can make lemonade… or vodka, or liqueur… So when Josh McLafferty suffered a career-ending accident, he and his wife Jen decided that they were going to search for a way forward that they both enjoyed. Living in Vancouver suddenly became less appealing. So the couple climbed up the mountainous region of British Columbia, into the Monashee Mountains, and settled in the town of Revelstoke. It’s here that the McLaffertys decided to open their now six-month- old craft distillery. The Monashee Spirits distillery is a small family-run business that believes in community, collaboration, and sustainability. Spotlight on Business spoke with Josh McLafferty about the amazing story that kick-started their adventure into distilling their own 100-per- cent organic spirits, and the whole Revelstoke craft scene.
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017
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