Ashley Messier builds hockey legacy with sights on PWHL, Olympics
6h ago
Mark Messier is her distant cousin, but this Sask. hockey product is carving her own path.
Hundreds of people made the trip to Lumsden on Saturday for the chance to score a bottle of cherry whisky at its launch for Last Mountain Distillery.
Colin Schmidt, owner and distillery for the Saskatchewan company, said there was a line out to the highway when they opened the doors on Saturday. It’s the second year the distillery produced cherry whisky. In 2014, Schmidt said they made 1,000 bottles, and they sold out in about two days.
“It kinda caught fire, and we wanted to be ready this year, so we made a lot more.”
As with many of their products, the cherry whisky is created with some locally sourced ingredients.
“We’re using organic cherries from Over The Hill Orchard, right down the road here in Lumsden.”
They also use wheat from Early Grey in their spirits, and rye from a farm down Highway 11 from Lumsden. Schmidt said being in Saskatchewan and supporting Saskatchewan is important.
“It’s kind of cool, you go right to the farm, and he loads the grain into the back of the truck, into a bin, and you actually develop a relationship with the people growing the products.”
Schmidt likes to tinker with new products.
“I like to be creative, I like to play around with different flavours … it’s something that I like to do, probably the best part of my job is coming up with new products.”
At the beginning of December, the company is launching a new, hazelnut whisky liqueur.
“It is something we’ve sort of been thinking of doing for the last little while, and I had a couple of spare moments where I could actually play around with some stuff, and I got the flavours just right.”
He said it’s fantastic.
The cherry whisky will be available in select off sales later in the week, but the liqueur will only be available at the distillery. Schmidt said they expect it to sell out that weekend.