SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
NOVEMBER 2017
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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from here, some things have to come from further away. But we try and source as local as we can. Or do it ourselves. For example, we are keeping bees on the top of the distillery. So hopefully by next year, all the sweeteners we use in the distillery will come from the honey of our own bees.” Monashee has gone the extra mile in becoming certified organic. That certification lends to credibility for their cus- tomers who insist on knowing exactly what they’re drinking and precisely where it came from. Josh points out, “Every- thing we do here is 100% certified organic. We are one of the very few organic distilleries in all of Canada.” “The village idiot who didn’t have enough money to pay me … was directly responsible for us starting a distillery.” The Revelstoke area, known for world-class skiing, is also a community that takes healthy lifestyles seriously. Much of the local agricultural philosophy is dedicated to organic growing and sustainable production techniques. So it made sense for Monashee to take the same route and appeal to the preferred lifestyle of the locals. “A lot of the farms around us are certified organic as well. We wanted to incorporate that into our business as being part of our personal mindsets. We want to be as socially responsible as possible with everything we do.”
sourcing pretty much everything in the production process requires in-depth checks on their suppliers’ production practices as well as ethics scans. Throw that on top of trying to remain competitive in the marketplace and you have a bit of a tightrope upon which to walk. “We can’t just go into a store and buy something off the shelf to use in our distilling because we just don’t know where it came from… For example, originally in our first business plan, we listed the cleaning products we were going to use and the organic board said ‘No! These products are toxic chemicals. You can’t use them and keep your certification.’ And we thought, holy smokes! This is a bit of an eye-opener for us.” A large part of their organic circle of life means finding ways to deal with waste from the distillery. To this end, Monashee partners with organic farms in the area to recycle their spent grains. Once they have used them to distill, the spent grains are sent back into the agricultural process and used to provide nutrients for the next batch of grains. In one case, the spent grains are even used as compost that provides enough heat during decomposition to keep a greenhouse at a constant 22 degrees Celsius in the winter. These are the types of processes that Monashee and their organic supply chain deem important to maintain the quality of life and business in Revelstoke. While it may cost a little more to ensure the products are 100% organic when they leave the distillery, Josh points out that there is a sizeable niche market that is more than willing to absorb a slightly higher retail price. “The demographic that appreciates 100% organic, REALLY appreciates it. They aren’t the people that will just throw back any alcohol into
Josh confessed that taking the “certified organic” route has occasionally proven to be challenging. For example,
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their body. They’re the ones who watch what they eat and drink in every situation.”
And their organic niche status allows them to partner up with organic businesses in other sectors and ride the coat- tails of their markets. “We are going to be teaming up with an organic winery out here as well. They want to do a grappa, so we’ll be working with them on that. And we get invited to participate in organic festivals, where non-or- ganic distilleries can’t get into. So we focus on the organic demographic.” Monashee’s product line consists of three main core products: A vodka, a creme liqueur and cinnamon liqueur. Their vodka is made with organic BC grains, and it boasts a simple finish, letting the freshness of the mountain spring and the spirits’ true flavours speak for themselves. “We didn’t want to have a vodka that tasted like rubbing alcohol that burns your throat. So we made a clean, crisp vodka with no additives. I can’t tell you how many people we have con- verted from non-vodka drinkers to people who buy a bottle to make vodka-forward cocktails!” “If you ever go hiking in the woods after a fresh rain, that smell in the air, that’s what it tastes like.” Designed perhaps for those skiers and snowboarders coming off the mountain and looking for a bit of fire in their bellies, Monashee also offers their Vulcan’s Fire. For this blend, they have infused apples, cinnamon, honey, maple syrup and red thai chili peppers to a well balanced spirit with some real heat. So you’ve been skiing, had a great time at the après ski, and you wish you could just bottle up the whole experience and take it home with you. Monashee Spirits has you covered. They will soon be releasing their gin, called ‘Ethos.’ “We wanted to create a gin that tastes like the alpine smells here in Revelstoke. We want to be able to bottle Revelstoke so you can take it home.” Josh explains that they accomplish this by adding a little mountain twist to the recipe. “We have a lot of the usual gin ingredients and botanicals, like juniper and coriander, but we also add some local Revelstoke huckleberries to it as well as spruce and wildflowers… If you ever go hiking in the woods after a fresh rain, that smell in the air, that’s what it tastes like.” By far, their best seller is their Big Mountain Creamer liqueur. It’s an espresso cream liqueur, made from organic BC cream, infused with chocolate, caramel, almonds, vanilla honey, maple syrup and local Stoke Roasted Coffee. Josh says they can’t keep it in stock. “We sell out of it every two or three weeks. We’re actually sold out of it right now,” he laughs.
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Monashee is content, for the time being, in playing catch-up with their demand.
While they do have space for expansion, a “baby steps” approach is a better fit for their easy-going mountain attitude. “Growth would involve more staff and a more complicated infrastructure. Right now it’s my wife and I and three employees. So we’re a hands-on mom-and- dad shop. Which is how we want it for now.” The distillery is situated in a retail building right on the main street in Revelstoke, which translates into a great deal of walk-in traffic. And they are content to limit their distribution to that one location. While Josh says that they may drop a few bottles into some local liquor stores, they don’t believe in shipping out pallets upon pallets of their products to far-away lands. “We wanted to create a ‘You want it? The walk-ins continue to do just that as Monashee contin- ues to burn the midnight oil trying to keep up with demand. Six months in and Josh assures that, while there will always be a few bumps in the road, the experience has been positive. In fact, they are talking about partnering with a craft brewer and covering even more bases. With their cooperative attitude and their sustainable business philos- ophy, it would appear that their busy shelves will not need dusting any time soon. Come and get it kind of thing. Come to Revelstoke. Come to the distillery. And take some home with you.”
“Cooperation is the new competition,” Josh opines. Look for great things to come out of Revelstoke in the near future. And while you’re climbing up to the summit, rise to the top with a Big Mountain Creamer!
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many thanks to our advertisers
www.fieldstoneorganics.ca
www.revelstokegarlicfestival.com
MONASHEE SPIRITS
307 Mackenzie Ave. - Bx 760, Revelstoke, BC V0E 2S0
(250) 463-5678
www.monasheespirits.com
as spotlighted in the NOVEMBER 2017 issue of SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
www.spotlightonbusinessmagazine.com
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