Ontario Craft Distillers
 

Valley of Mother of God’s award-winning gins are the result of a fruitful collaboration between Malcolm Roberts, a spirits-savvy marketing executive, and Shelly Perry, who holds a degree in food science. “With my love of food and drink and his love of spirits, we decided to take the leap and create a world-class gin,” recalls co-founder Perry. That leap into the unknown became a process of years that took them around North America and Europe as they educated themselves on gin-making and sourced distinctly Canadian flavours for their recipe. “Gins are about the provenance of their local area — where they’re from,” shares co-founder Roberts. They also drew on the expertise of master distillers. The recipe for their Canadian Wild Juniper Gin, a classic London Dry-style gin, was fine-tuned by renowned Thames Distillery in London, England. With distillation moving to Ontario, it launched at the LCBO in April 2020. The gin features 20 botanicals, 10 of which are Canadian, including two grown on the couple's Hockley Valley-area farm, Foxglove Farm. “We’ve got black walnut from the farm as well as black trumpet mushrooms from Muskoka, and Labrador tea from Labrador,” says Perry. 

In 2022, after five years of development, the duo launched their second spirit, a luxe sipping gin made with smoked juniper. Its flavour is unlike anything else within the gin category, says Roberts. “Our intention was to put Canada on the map with a distinct gin,” he adds. “We really wanted to connect that idea of nature with botanicals. We thought about campfires in the fall — that beautiful smell.” 

Nearly eight years after they formed a plan to do something special together, Perry and Roberts have managed to do just that and more. In 2023, both gins won medals at The Spirits Business global gin competition — a gold for the Canadian Wild Juniper and a coveted masters medal for the Maplewood Smoked Gin.

Moon Spirits’ director Alex Safir first encountered the Korean spirit Soju as a student at the University of Toronto. “Soju was my drink of choice,” shares Safir, who fondly recalls evenings enjoying Toronto’s many Korean restaurants. “Soju is very social. It’s a drink you enjoy with friends,” he explains. It was the unique flavour of the lower-alcohol grain-based spirit and its nostalgic associations that formed the nugget of an idea that he brought to his father in 2017.  

Since moving his family to Canada in 1999 from Ukraine, Alex’s father, Leon Safir, had been manufacturing alcohol for other brands at his Vaughan, Ontario, distillery. Alex saw Soju as the perfect opportunity for father and son to partner on an innovative venture that filled a hole in the market for locally made Asian spirits. “In Korea,” he says, “there’s hundreds of brands of Soju. But here it’s limited to a handful of big brands.” 

Safir likens Soju’s taste profile to something like a lighter-style vodka. The grain-based spirit is also lower in alcohol — Moon Spirits’ Soju ranges from 16 per cent ABV to around 19 per cent. Traditionally, Soju is enjoyed as a shot with dinner, Safir says. The brand’s popular flavoured Soju offerings, however, can be enjoyed like other popular lower-alcohol, ready-to-drink cocktails. These entertaining-ready flavours are also on the lower end of the ABV scale and made with real fruit extracts that offer a cleaner, more natural taste, he says. 

Soju’s versatility is its defining feature, however. Moon Spirits’ oak barrel-aged Soju aims to appeal to whisky fans looking for a similar character profile without the higher alcohol content. “It’s like a light whisky with a lower ABV,” says Safir.

When the pandemic hit in spring 2020, Guelph’s Spring Mill Distillery was in the process of crafting its first barrels of whisky. "We took a big hit when bars and restaurants closed but we continued to lay down the whisky like nothing was happening, and are we ever glad we did,” says Cooper Sleeman, Director of Sales and Marketing. “We have award-winning whiskies coming out now and we wouldn’t if we’d ceased production."

Spring Mill’s award-winning lineup includes John Sleeman & Sons Rye Whisky and Sherry Finished Single Malt, which both won Bronze at the 2024 Canadian Whisky Awards, and John Sleeman & Sons The Cooper’s Rye, which won Silver. “It’s 100 per cent Canadian rye aged four-and-a-half years in virgin barrels handmade by our cooper, my brother Quinn, who learned his craft in Scotland and Missouri,” says Sleeman. “It surprised us how well it came out of the barrel. It’s a really exciting, really unique whisky, and we’ve only got 50 cases available so we anticipate it will be gone fast.”

The Sleeman family brings the same passion to whisky-making that made them a household name in brewing. In 1834, John H. Sleeman opened a brewery in St. David's, Ontario, and his great-great-grandson John W. Sleeman resurrected the family brand in 1988 and rebuilt the legacy to become the third largest brewer in Canada. In 2019, inspired by the growing trend of craft spirits, Sleeman founded Spring Mill Distillery in a restored historic stone building in Guelph and approached spirits with the same authenticity that led to his family’s brewing success. They embraced traditional distilling techniques, investing in handcrafted copper stills from Scotland — using barrels and authentic mash bills from Kentucky and bottling spirits by hand. “We want to be sure what we’re putting out is exceptional.”

Known internationally for producing award-winning Icewines, Magnotta Winery’s ability to deliver affordable excellence also extends to craft spirits, which it started producing in 1995. “My husband Gabe suggested we use the pomace from the skins of our Icewine grapes, and distill it to make grappa,” recalls Magnotta CEO Rossana Magnotta. The frozen skins of Magnotta's medal-winning Icewine grapes are thawed out, fermented and distilled using Charentais-style Alembic stills, designed to extract the intrinsic, extraordinary flavours of the Icewine grape. “We were proud we had the ability and the technological expertise to create an Ice Grappa™ that could compete on the world stage.” After distillation, Magnotta barrel ages its Ice Grappa in hybrid American/French oak barrels with a heavy toast and ages it for 10 years to add richness and chocolate, vanilla and nutty notes. "It's a marriage of a fiery Italian Grappa tempered by the chill of our Canadian winter,” says Magnotta. “Those cold temperatures soften and smooth out the flavours of the grape. People like it because it’s approachable.”

Magnotta’s innovative spirits collection also includes its 271 Canadian Single Malt Whisky, named for its address in Vaughan, Ont.  “We sourced the best quality barley and made the first batch in 2011,” recalls Magnotta’s Head Winemaker and Master Distiller Peter Rotar. “We use Alembic copper pot stills, like the ones used in the Cognac region, which give us the ability to extract more flavour by distilling the product two or three times.” The result: Our 3 Year Old Whisky is smooth with notes of vanilla, clove and a hint of sweetness." With longer aging, in the 5 and 10 Year Old, the flavour is even smoother. "During the aging process, the whisky is like a living organism and evolves and gets better and better with time.”

The two “Hs” in Toronto’s H2 Craft Spirits, Dave Holland and Julian Holland, got into the distilling business after working together for years as a beer rep and LCBO store manager. They introduced their first spirit, the unique colour-changing Indigo Gin in 2018. “We make it with a butterfly flower that interacts with citric acid,” explains Julian, “and the chemical reaction changes the pH balance and turns the gin from dark blue to lilac pink.”

After a foray into pre-mixed cocktails, H2 introduced a Peanut Butter Whisky and a Spice Cinnamon Whisky. “There were others on the market but typically we think what’s out there could be better from the standpoint of pure flavour.” H2’s secret? The distillery uses a shock wave high-tech blending machine to project vapour bubbles into flavour material, such as wood chips or fruit, which pulls the flavour out and blends it. “It gives us an edge because we’re extracting more flavour into our drinks,” says Julian. “We believe our spirits are as good as anything on the market.”

In addition to a summery Hibiscus Gin and a cocktail-ready Craft Vodka that’s distilled three times, H2’s most popular product is its sugar-free SpiritLiss Hibiscus Non-Alcoholic Gin & Tonic. “It’s our most innovative product and easily our bestseller,” says Julian. "We came out with it in 2022 and were ahead of our time. In the last eight months, it has had a sharp uptick in sales at the LCBO. Non-alcoholic spirit-based RTDs are still pretty new and they’re hard to make so ours stands out.”

Named for the copper equipment used to distill its premium vodka, and its location in Windsor, the city of roses, Copper Rose Distillery introduced the first batch of its popular spirit in July 2023 after a year of development. “We hit the ground running and we’re now in 165 LCBO stores,” says CEO Melissa Roberts. “The growth has been crazy. Being a new brand, we’ve done a lot of tastings across LCBO stores and we’re building a network of followers and growing our licensee network in each market.” Those efforts are paying off. Copper Rose Vodka won Silver in the vodka category at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2024.

“Our goal is to be the premium Canadian vodka," says Copper Rose’s Master Distiller Garrett Kean, who created the recipe for the spirit with local rye to give it that Canadian character. “People tend to associate rye with whisky but there are beautiful spirits that aren’t hit-you-in-the-mouth flavourful,” says Kean. “Fortune played in our favour. The water table in Windsor pairs well with spirits. The combination of local rye and local water in Windsor are the biggest factors in the quality of our spirits.” Cooper Rose also distills its vodka 12 times and takes its time with the blending process. “We really allow the water and spirit to marry over time, and that results in an incredibly smooth vodka with subtle floral, citrus and faint pepper flavours. A lot of people drink it neat and it’s a great martini vodka.”