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OCATED INSIDE THE SKELETONOF A 1920s-ERA
movie theatre just off of Main Street in Turner Valley,
Eau Claire Distillery is the first of its kind in Alberta—a
genuine craft distillery using only premium Alberta grains and
Rocky Mountain water to make its small-batch spirits.
“I thought Alberta of all places, with our premium grain,
should be a place where we have a craft distillery,” said Eau
Claire’s president and co-founder David Farran. “Alberta ships
our barley to Scotland to make scotch, so why don’t we make
premium products here?”
Until recently, the answer to that question was quite simple:
government regulations made it nearly impossible.
For many years, Alberta’s perfect conditions for craft distilling
went to waste. Government regulations required that any
distillery in the province have the capacity for 250,000 litres of
absolute alcohol production annually. This amounts to roughly
625,000 litres of 80-proof vodka, gin or whisky—far more than
any true craft distillery could ever produce.
Then, in December 2013, the Alberta Gaming and Liquor
Commission eliminated the minimum production rules,
opening the door for a craft distilling industry to establish itself
in the province. Farran and his business partners were the first to
take the plunge.
Farran’s career started in beer rather than spirits, when he
joined fledgling craft brewery Big Rock as vice-president in
1984. He has also founded several successful businesses,
including Pipestone Travel Outfitters, Associate Veterinary
Clinics and Medalta Healthcare Solutions.
Farran created Eau Claire Distillery with the help of two of
his old colleagues: former Big Rock brewmaster Larry Kerwin
and former Associate Veterinary Clinics CFO Brad Stevens.
Together, they built the business from the ground up.
Turner Valley was chosen as the perfect location for the
distillery, Farran said, because of its agricultural roots and storied
history as a hotbed of illicit alcohol production during Prohibition.
“Prohibition and boom time in Turner Valley overlapped,
which created some incredible sort of frontier town mentalities,”
he said. “There were lots of stills hidden in the hills. There was a
street called Whisky Row full of speakeasies.”
Despite the end of minimumproduction requirements, Farran
and his team faced their fair share of regulatory hurdles and other
challenges on the way to making their business plan a reality.
Fall
2014
Grains
West
40
FromGrain
toGlass
A look inside Alberta’s first cra distillery
BY TYLER DIFLEY • PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATT PALMER
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