THE BEST STORIES have modest beginnings. Sure, I get the appeal of tales about the conquering hero, but the setup is almost always weighed-down by a list of past victories – and very few defeats – that have little or no meaning for what’s to come. That entire pretense, all that bluster just gets in the way of the real action that is the living characters. When Spotlight on Business reached out to Dean and Louise Perry, the husband and wife co-owners of After Dark Distillery in Sicamous, British Columbia, I knew that I was in for a good story – the best kind. When I asked the pair to tell me how the distillery came to be, Louise couldn’t have been more modest: “We were looking for something else to do, another adventure. We came across this building here in Sicamous on Main Street and Shuswap Avenue, which used to be a three-lane bowling alley at one time, and we did extensive renovations and we went from there.” From there Dean and Louise have crafted quite a reputation amongst BC distillers and connoisseurs of artisan spirits in The Pacific Province. In less than a year After Dark Distillery’s lineup of eight flavoured moonshines – as well as their After Dark Burner Vodka, Monashee Mountain Vodka and, coming soon, Monashee Mountain Whiskey – have become a part of the cultural landscape from Dawson Creek to Williams Lake. By David MacDonald W hen you came to Sicamous from Grand Prairie, Alberta more than a year ago to start distilling your spirits, what were your first products? DP: The straight vodka was one of our first products. A lot of distilleries, small distilleries, produce vodka because you have to have product to sell. If you want to call your whiskey an aged Canadian whiskey it has to be in a wooden barrel for three years. You have to have an income coming in while you’re waiting for that, so that’s often why people produce gins and vodkas – you’ve got to get your cash flow going. There are 12 products in total now, too. We’ve got our straight vodka, our hot pepper vodka, our whiskey and our straight moonshine – and then eight different flavours of moonshine: Mango Peach, Peach, Maple, Mountain Dew, Ginger & Honey, Lemonade, Ice Tea and Apple Pie. The Mango Peach, Apple Pie and Ginger & Honey are big sellers. And it’s all-natural flavourings, too.
That sounds incredible – and full of cocktail potential. So, any recommendations? LP: I’m a Paralyzer drinker, so I like the Apple Pie inmy Paralyzer. DP : I like the hot pepper vodka; I just drink it straight or put it in a Caesar. LP: We also have a coffee, espresso spirit coming out soon. DP: And we’re going to be working on gins in the near future, too. We’ll play with that and come up with some- thing great. Would a truly BC craft rum be a possibility in the future? DP: Well we source our grains from suppliers in the area. Most of our grains come from a half hour to an hour away from us. Some of our other ingredients, like hot peppers, also come from local people. Everything in our product grows from within BC – that’s what makes us a craft dis- tillery. Unless somebody starts growing sugar cane here in BC, we’re not distilling a truly craft rum – you need sugar and molasses for rum. All moonshine is, it’s a white whiskey. It’s an unaged whiskey that hasn’t been sealed away in a barrel for three years. It’s often called white whiskey, actually. As soon as it comes off the still at anywhere between 83 and 88 percent, it’s a whiskey. That’s where we cut it. As soon as you go over 90 percent, it’s basically vodka, a neutral grain spirit. I’ve got to know, who makes the call to “cut it?” DP: We do it all here. I do all the distilling, all the blending – everything. We’ve got people, friends and family, who come in to help out sometimes with things like bottling. From time to time I need some help, backup, with the stills and I’ve got a guy for that. There are also great local people we’ve hired to help out with the store front. LP: We’re doing all the marketing, all the promoting our- selves right now, too. We’ve put a lot of kilometres behind us. As far as distribution goes, we keep in touch – about once a month – with all the private liquor stores that carry our products. Right now, we’re using Overland West for our freight; if they’re local, we bring it ourselves. Where in BC can craft spirit loyalists find your lineup? LP: We’re in all the local private liquor stores and many more throughout BC. You can find our products all the way up in Northern BC, so Dawson Creek, Fort St. John and over to Quesnel and Williams Lake. We just did a tour of Southern BC and we went through the Interior – and we just sent an order out to the Islands. We’re really starting to grow. You can also find our products in a lot of the pubs, too. They make so many different cocktails out of our spirits, particu- larly our flavoured stuff. Our new hot Burner Vodka is really good in Caesars.
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FEBRUARY 2018 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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