“We took a lot of time, seven years in fact, doing research on every conceivable aspect of the industry before we got off the ground.”
LB: It’s hard sometimes to move into an existing building and make the building green – we get that. It can cost a fair amount of money. But it definitely has its advantages when you have a say in a new build. We create a lot of hot water in our process, for example, and we capture that and use it in cleaning and for other purposes. We knew that if we thought outside the box that we could really limit our carbon footprint. “We’ve created this vodka that is so smooth, is so delicate, and has a beautiful mouthfeel – it has a lot of cleanness to it. If cocktails are your thing, it blends so smoothly – there’s nothing harsh about it.” We share our 4 000 square feet production space with a brewery – we actually knew the landlord before; his son runs the brewery. It’s really a family environment. We’re in the south-facing side of the building looking towards the river. We also share a boiler. My husband and other business partnerdesigned the space with production in mind. It’s not just an industrial building, which you have to be in in Ontario. All the floors are sloped and have drains, and we meet those sorts of requirements, but we’re really proud of our green-focused design choices. We’ve included a lot of windows for natural light, for instance, and these have another great impact: you can also see our still with its columns from the road when you drive by. Like I said, distill- ing isn’t a hidden world anymore. I’m sure the readers would love to hear about the fruits of your collective labour, Laura. The bottle, for me, is reminis- cent of the Royal crier’s bell and the variety of spirits you offer is diverse yet not overwhelming.
There’s also a cache created by reality TV now with shows like Moonshiners. Distilling used to be this hidden thing and people are just recently getting the chance to see in-person behind-the- scenes. Even people well-versed in brewing and winemaking often have no idea how spirits are made because societally it’s always been a closed door process. It’s really an unveiling; we’ve opened-up the door on this secret. We have windows in our retail space so that people can see into the distillery and see every step of the process. People are curious about the process and the questions we get from people who weren’t inquisitive when they first came but then see the founda- tional steps of a recipe in action are incredible. Like any artisan product, any organic product, people want to know what’s in it. Knowing about the impact of local foods on your diet, your body, and the connection to your environment is a really big component for us. We knew that philosophy could be applied to spirits and that there was a demand for it amongst the craft culture. Finding fresh, locally-sourced ingredients was a major part of turning our vision into a reality. That’s how we came to embrace corn for our vodka. We wanted to do something organic and we wanted to highlight that there’s so much opportunity to be creative and still stay local – I should say that we do import our sugar, though. Being local, being sustainable and green is really paramount to us. We want people to ask questions, to get educated, to know what a cut is and how batch distilling differs from contin- uous and or what a cut is or what a pot still is. We want to talk about what that means when you drink it. It’s not uncommon for someone to come in for a taste and then spend a half hour talking to us. We love it. How does the distillery itself, your location at 5 Newport Drive, help you meet your green goals?
We have three white spirits –Von Schoultz Vodka, Prescott
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NOVEMBER 2017 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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