City slickers

High Spirits

Jennifer and Terry visit a distillery and witness wheat transformed into an array of spirits and liqueurs.

Story by Jennifer Cockrall-King and Terry Juzak • Photography by John Gaucher

Finally, our dream assignment! We're being dispatched to High River in southern Alberta on a mission to delve into the province's liquor and spirits industry. Our destination? Highwood Distillers Ltd., an Alberta-owned, independent distiller. And while Highwood may be a relatively small, niche producer, we soon discover it's not content to rest on those old Alberta standbys of rye whisky and vodka. Dare we say that Highwood produces an intoxicating array of spirits and liqueurs? It includes everything from Long Island Iced Tea premixes, Irish Cream, tequilas, rums and gins to intriguing creations like Bullets and Longshotz.

Our tour guides are Barry Wilde, president of Highwood Distillers, and Glen Hopkins, vice-president of operations. With the noise of a shift in full swing, we start at the beginning - in front of a giant metal cauldron, where the miraculous process of turning 5,400 pounds of Alberta wheat into alcohol begins.

Right away, Highwood distinguishes itself from its competition by creating its base alcohol for its products using 100% Canadian wheat. In fact, it's High River wheat, sourced from growers in the immediate area, enthuses Wilde.

Most distilleries use corn, explains Hopkins, who is the distillery equivalent of the brewmaster. He also has the enviable job of concocting different flavour combinations for new products. Wheat, as opposed to corn or other grains, requires less filtering and results in a purer, tasteless, colourless alcohol, which is the goal.

Once the wheat is cooked, the mix is then moved to a 14,000-litre cooling tank. After cooling, the next stop is the fermenter, where yeast and enzymes are added to start the fermentation process, and after a few days, the mixture settles, and the alcohol can then be distilled and filtered over and over again to purify it.

This is where the distiller's touch comes in. The alcohol produced at the very beginning of the distillation process has too many impurities for human consumption. (Interestingly, this waste alcohol is evaporated off and sold by Highwood to the drilling industry for use as an industrial lubricant.) Eventually, purer and cleaner alcohol known as "high wine" can be collected and is then refined through even more distillation. It is then diluted with water to 40% alcohol content. This becomes the neutral spirit which is blended with other flavourings and other alcohols. At the very middle of distillation, known as the "super-centre," the purest alcohol is produced. Voila! Vodka. The whole process from wheat to spirit takes a mere five days.

Next we move into the bottling room, where the depth and breadth of Highwood's product line becomes apparent. Today, brown bottles race along the bottling line as they are filled with a syrupy brown coffee liqueur called Colita Coffee del Sol, capped, sealed, inspected and boxed. A few days earlier, Saskatoon Berry Liqueur was being made. On other days, it might be Céili's Irish Cream, Centurian Sambuca, Wild Caramel Toffee or Bello Amaretto. Of the 40-odd different products made here, just three carry the Highwood name on the label. Highwood also makes private label products for stores such as Superstore and Calgary Co-op.

Our last stop is the aging cellar where Highwood's signature product, rye whisky, mellows for anywhere between three and 21 years. It's an impressive sight, seeing 2,500 time-worn, tawny oak barrels stacked floor to ceiling. We're told that another 16,000 barrels are merrily aging away in two other locations. The sweet, toasty vanilla aroma is seductive, and as we inhale deeply over and over again, Hopkins jokes that this is the smell of money evaporating.

Evaporation issues aside, spirit sales are on an upswing, says Wilde. This may account for the upcoming expansion to double the size of the operation at Highwood, and the recent acquisition of a competitor in Kelowna, B.C. It's part of a national trend, continues Wilde. Wine is the fastest growing market in Canada, but spirits, especially the clear spirits like vodka and gin are next. As for Highwood's products, it's a primarily homegrown market. Most are sold in Alberta and the western provinces. Some, like the Wild Rose Cream liqueurs make it to the Northwest Territories and Quebec markets. Highwood's Pearl Vodka is exported to the United States.

Despite the growth in clear spirits, the more profitable items are those that have lower alcohol content because they are taxed at a lower rate. These include liqueurs, cream liqueurs and those mysterious things you find in bars or near the checkout of your local liquor store: Bullets and Longshotz. Bullets are single-serving-in-a-dixie-cup shots in flavours like Strawberry Tequila and Butterscotch; Longshotz come in plastic test tubes with names like Chocolatini and Fuzzy Navel.

"If you're not coming out with new products, you're done," states Wilde. As a relatively small company, Highwood Distillers finds they can quickly respond to ever-fickle trends.

We secretly hope to sample some of these neon-wonders-in-dixie-cups, for professional reasons only of course. Product testing, however, is not part of the tour. Not unwisely, Wilde and Hopkins keep a close eye on us as we pose for our photo op with a hilariously oversized vodka bottle. (Yes, it contained real vodka; no, we didn't even sneak a sip.)