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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's Podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_00: Hello, I'm Mario Tonigus,
[00:07] SPEAKER_00: a managing editor of Canada's podcast.
[00:10] SPEAKER_00: Today, joining me on Calgary's podcast is David Farron,
[00:13] SPEAKER_00: who is founder and president of Oak Claire Distillery.
[00:18] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us today, David.
[00:20] SPEAKER_02: No, thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
[00:22] SPEAKER_00: Well, let's just start just talking a little bit about
[00:25] SPEAKER_00: Oak Claire Distillery.
[00:27] SPEAKER_00: You talked me what it is and what you guys do.
[00:29] SPEAKER_02: Well, we started about 10 years ago.
[00:32] SPEAKER_02: We were the first craft distillery in the province of Alberta.
[00:35] SPEAKER_02: And we make a lot of different spirits.
[00:40] SPEAKER_02: But we've always viewed ourselves as a primarily a whiskey producer.
[00:45] SPEAKER_02: And of course, that's a long and patient process.
[00:48] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, 10 years is still a baby in our industry.
[00:52] SPEAKER_02: And we're waiting for all those spirits to mature
[00:55] SPEAKER_02: as we go forward.
[00:58] SPEAKER_00: Yes, tell me just a little bit of the history behind it.
[01:01] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, being at the forefront of what now is a growing industry,
[01:08] SPEAKER_00: both for, you know, spirits and also for beer in this province.
[01:14] SPEAKER_00: Like, what got you into that?
[01:16] SPEAKER_00: Like, where did the idea come to do this?
[01:18] SPEAKER_00: And why?
[01:20] SPEAKER_02: Well, it wasn't a street path.
[01:22] SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you that.
[01:23] SPEAKER_02: I think a few different influences.
[01:27] SPEAKER_02: One is that I come from a ranching farming family.
[01:31] SPEAKER_02: And I had taken note that Alberta, you know,
[01:37] SPEAKER_02: makes the best Barney in the world.
[01:38] SPEAKER_02: And about 80% of Scotch whiskey in Scotland is made with Alberta Barley.
[01:44] SPEAKER_02: And so I kind of thought to myself, well, if, you know,
[01:48] SPEAKER_02: if that's the case, why are we not doing it here?
[01:50] SPEAKER_02: There had never been a single malt whiskey distillery before that time.
[01:55] SPEAKER_02: And then another influence on me was back in my sort of career history.
[02:00] SPEAKER_02: I was vice president of Big Rock Rory.
[02:02] SPEAKER_02: And I, right at the very beginning, I was the first employee in 1984.
[02:07] SPEAKER_02: So you can put a date on me and my career by that number.
[02:13] SPEAKER_02: And it was really the birth of the craft beer industry.
[02:18] SPEAKER_02: So I saw that emerging.
[02:19] SPEAKER_02: And then I thought, 30 years later, why are we not seeing sort of the craft innovation in the whiskey business?
[02:28] SPEAKER_02: So that helped sort of pounce the idea to start.
[02:33] SPEAKER_00: Oh, interesting.
[02:34] SPEAKER_00: Interesting that you were at Big Rock as that was.
[02:37] SPEAKER_00: And I still is.
[02:38] SPEAKER_00: One of my favorites, the old traditional Al, I love that.
[02:43] SPEAKER_00: So what do you, why do you think this whole area of craft, whether it's beer or whether it's spirits?
[02:53] SPEAKER_00: Why is that grown in popularity so much?
[02:57] SPEAKER_00: They're not only in Alberta, across the country, really.
[03:00] SPEAKER_02: I think every industry has sort of ebbs and flows.
[03:05] SPEAKER_02: And what happened in both spirits and beer was you had, you know, mergers and consolidation of the industry,
[03:16] SPEAKER_02: which sort of stripped it of its innovation and made it so that it was all about production and efficiencies.
[03:25] SPEAKER_02: And, you know, and you saw that in beer.
[03:27] SPEAKER_02: And then somebody came along and said, well, actually we can make beer that has different flavors.
[03:32] SPEAKER_02: And more, you know, more substance to it.
[03:36] SPEAKER_02: The same is true with spirits.
[03:38] SPEAKER_02: You know, we've been, you know, sort of fed what larger players want to feed us.
[03:46] SPEAKER_02: But it's never been sort of the other side where you're, you know, innovating and saying to consumers,
[03:52] SPEAKER_02: what would you like to try it this way?
[03:55] SPEAKER_02: And so I think consumers want more.
[03:58] SPEAKER_02: And they don't like to be spoon-fed.
[04:00] SPEAKER_00: Now, when you first started, what was your biggest challenge in setting this business up?
[04:10] SPEAKER_02: Well, frankly, like so much of business, I mean, you know, government and red tape is a big factor.
[04:17] SPEAKER_02: And of course, when you're starting something that's the first in a province in the alcohol industry heavily regulated,
[04:23] SPEAKER_02: we ran into, you know, a lot of obstacles, but, you know, we persevered and we overcame them.
[04:30] SPEAKER_02: And I think we did it as sort of pioneers and that has spawned in industry.
[04:37] SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it hasn't been without challenges, for sure.
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[04:52] SPEAKER_00: Now, and what about the, physically, in setting something up, like what did you have to get and what did you have to do to start a, a distillery?
[05:04] SPEAKER_02: Well, I was very lucky that a colleague of mine named Larry Kerwin was both a master distiller and a master brewer.
[05:12] SPEAKER_02: And I worked with him at, at Big Rock.
[05:14] SPEAKER_02: And so I reached out to him and he said, look, I won't be around for the 25-year-old, but I'd love to help you get this thing started.
[05:23] SPEAKER_02: And so, so he did.
[05:24] SPEAKER_02: And so we had, we went out and we found the right equipment in Germany and we, you know, our mantra from the very beginning was to make sure that it was the highest quality we could produce and the best equipment.
[05:37] SPEAKER_02: So we brought that all over to Canada.
[05:41] SPEAKER_02: We needed a place to set up, which, you know, we didn't want to be in a place where you had to renew your rent at market rates every five years.
[05:52] SPEAKER_02: We needed something where we could own the property and put away whiskey for 20 years.
[05:58] SPEAKER_02: And so we found that in Turner Valley, which is kind of where I come from.
[06:03] SPEAKER_02: And we started by buying the old Turner Valley movie theater.
[06:09] SPEAKER_02: We had the ceiling heights and it's, in fact, in behind me in order to put our big distilling stuff, you know, the columns and the towers.
[06:20] SPEAKER_02: We quickly realized that that was not enough space.
[06:24] SPEAKER_02: And so over time, we've now grown to be, I think, we're about 10 acres in the middle of the town and we have about seven buildings.
[06:31] SPEAKER_02: And so we've grown down the street all in old 1920s era buildings, which has been fun as well.
[06:42] SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
[06:43] SPEAKER_00: What in terms of the name, where did the name come from?
[06:48] SPEAKER_02: Well, a lot of Calgaryans know of a clear market.
[06:51] SPEAKER_02: But what they probably don't know is that the old clear area was actually west of Turner Valley.
[06:56] SPEAKER_02: And that's where the old clear and Bolriver lumber company came from.
[07:00] SPEAKER_02: So much of early Calgary was built on lumber that came from Canada's country in the old clear area west of us.
[07:09] SPEAKER_02: So we like that, you know, link to history.
[07:12] SPEAKER_02: And of course, you know, when you make whiskey, it's clear water.
[07:15] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, a nod to our French heritage as well.
[07:20] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[07:21] SPEAKER_00: So, roughly, like, how many different brands do you have of whiskey?
[07:28] SPEAKER_02: We have, right now we've got three core brands and then we do special releases.
[07:34] SPEAKER_02: So we have our Rupert's brand, which is kind of our everyday one that you'll find in, I think, most liquor stores.
[07:43] SPEAKER_02: And that is that's the one that we just want to, you know, an international platinum is now ranked as one of the best whiskeys in the world.
[07:51] SPEAKER_02: And then we have a Rai whiskey that's called Stampede Rai whiskey.
[07:56] SPEAKER_02: And we did that originally as a sort of a partnership with Calgary Stampede.
[08:02] SPEAKER_02: And so it's branded as a very western style Rai whiskey, which is also nod to our heritage.
[08:10] SPEAKER_02: And then we have batch releases that we do of single malt.
[08:15] SPEAKER_02: And so next year, you'll start to see a permanent line of single malt that is out in the market.
[08:23] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[08:24] SPEAKER_00: You obviously have a taste for whiskeys and scotchets?
[08:30] SPEAKER_02: I do.
[08:31] SPEAKER_02: You know, I like it.
[08:32] SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a brilliant evolved in my view.
[08:35] SPEAKER_02: It's got, you know, so much flavor from our barley and really, you know, the province that we build it in.
[08:43] SPEAKER_02: And it has been very interesting just to kind of know that you're creating something out of like out of the terroir of Alberta.
[08:54] SPEAKER_02: And not we're not at sea level.
[08:56] SPEAKER_02: We're not where, you know, in Scotland where it's, you know, 15 degrees Celsius all year round.
[09:02] SPEAKER_02: At 100% humidity.
[09:04] SPEAKER_02: We're at 4,000 feet.
[09:05] SPEAKER_02: And that has created a very unique flavor that I don't think you'd find anywhere in the world.
[09:10] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[09:12] SPEAKER_00: That's interesting, right?
[09:13] SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of people don't think about that when it comes to stuff like this.
[09:19] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, even like cooking and growing things.
[09:22] SPEAKER_00: You know, if a different climate here, right?
[09:25] SPEAKER_02: Well, we didn't know when we started.
[09:28] SPEAKER_02: And you know, that's because when you're doing something for the first time, you know, you discover things along the trail.
[09:35] SPEAKER_02: But we're such a dry climate.
[09:37] SPEAKER_02: You know, we have these shurucks that are up down.
[09:39] SPEAKER_02: And so our temperature is 40 below in the winter and 30 above in the summer.
[09:46] SPEAKER_02: And so what that does to the maturation of the whiskey is that it accelerates it.
[09:50] SPEAKER_02: And so it's drawing out all that flavor and, you know, oxygen and eating it faster than what normally happened.
[09:57] SPEAKER_02: So our five year old would be equivalent to a 10 year old because it's maturing so fast.
[10:03] SPEAKER_02: And then a lot of people talk about the angel share of whiskey, which is the evaporation that happens over the maturation period.
[10:13] SPEAKER_02: And we have an enormous angel share.
[10:15] SPEAKER_02: I mean, the angels take way too much from us.
[10:18] SPEAKER_02: It's like 12% in the first year.
[10:21] SPEAKER_02: But it's water because we're so dry.
[10:24] SPEAKER_02: It's just taking out the water and it's actually concentrating the whiskey.
[10:27] SPEAKER_02: So again, it's an advantage to us to create a great whiskey here.
[10:31] SPEAKER_00: You think, you know, when you look at the craft industry.
[10:35] SPEAKER_00: So when you're looking at say, whiskey is in that whole area, the others, you know, there are others do gins and you name it rum and all that.
[10:45] SPEAKER_00: But is there kind of, I don't know, a bit of a Renaissance, so to speak out there that this is now.
[10:55] SPEAKER_00: This is now something that almost everybody partakes it, right?
[11:00] SPEAKER_00: It's not like the old cigar smoke in white dudes in their 60s plus, right?
[11:09] SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
[11:10] SPEAKER_02: I mean, the demographics around both whiskey and all all different spirits have completely changed.
[11:16] SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, I think the fastest growing group of whiskey drinkers are women, which is a lot of people.
[11:24] SPEAKER_02: Certainly, 30 years ago, it would be unheard of.
[11:28] SPEAKER_02: And so you're seeing that you do still see some thing, you know, a gin is sort of skewed a little bit more to female than male.
[11:37] SPEAKER_02: But definitely, there's a broader spectrum of people that are enjoying spirits.
[11:43] SPEAKER_02: And they don't, you know, they enjoy them for their quality.
[11:46] SPEAKER_02: I think the move to quality has been very substantial over the last 10 years.
[11:51] SPEAKER_02: And there's, you know, it's not about going out and getting tanked and, you know, in the bar.
[11:57] SPEAKER_02: That includes young people.
[12:00] SPEAKER_02: It's about, you know, enjoying the social aspects of the drink with your friends.
[12:07] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[12:07] SPEAKER_00: And they're just, I don't know, they're just something about having a craft product, you know, for people.
[12:14] SPEAKER_00: I think there's beyond the beyond the flavor and taste.
[12:21] SPEAKER_00: Do you find that more people are more in tune of say, by local these days?
[12:28] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's a pride of local, right?
[12:30] SPEAKER_02: And I think that, you know, it probably has always happened around the world.
[12:34] SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you go to Europe, I just came back from a barrel, barrel buying trip in Spain.
[12:39] SPEAKER_02: And each town has their own specialty.
[12:42] SPEAKER_02: And each region has something that they're very, they're proud of.
[12:45] SPEAKER_02: And that's part of their culinary culture.
[12:48] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[12:48] SPEAKER_02: I think as Canadians, we're a bit young for that.
[12:51] SPEAKER_02: But it's starting to happen.
[12:53] SPEAKER_02: And as we, you know, are trying to support business and entrepreneurs, I think we also realize that buying local is important in all aspects.
[13:02] SPEAKER_02: And people really support us that way.
[13:04] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[13:06] SPEAKER_00: And maybe just talk a little bit more, David, about doing business, you know, having a company that's headquartered in Alberta.
[13:15] SPEAKER_00: You know, what, you know, what are the advantages of being a business owner here, the entrepreneur here?
[13:23] SPEAKER_02: I think I've been an entrepreneur in my whole career.
[13:26] SPEAKER_02: And I can say that I have, being in Alberta, facilitated so much more than it would have anywhere else.
[13:37] SPEAKER_02: I mean, we have a culture of entrepreneurs, of go getters and people that just do things.
[13:45] SPEAKER_02: And I think we still have that culture.
[13:48] SPEAKER_02: It's getting sort of nipped around the edges, but the reality is that some of the things we do and are able to do in this province is because we just people respect entrepreneurialism.
[14:01] SPEAKER_02: And they support it.
[14:02] SPEAKER_01: Stay ahead of the game with our expert tips and strategies that will help your business thrive in a digital era.
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[14:12] SPEAKER_00: What would you say, you know, you mentioned being an entrepreneur for some time?
[14:19] SPEAKER_00: What would you say here?
[14:21] SPEAKER_00: I guess the positives are for you, bro.
[14:25] SPEAKER_00: You know, why do you like being an entrepreneur?
[14:28] SPEAKER_02: I think there's a, there's a joy in creating something, in creating jobs.
[14:35] SPEAKER_02: You know, I think that the value added perspective of taking something like barley as a primary grain and turning it into something that people can use as a consumer is very satisfying.
[14:50] SPEAKER_02: And you know, we've grown from basically one employee to 71 employees and created an industry for the town of Turner Valley.
[14:59] SPEAKER_02: And there's a certain satisfaction in saying, well, we're adding back, right?
[15:03] SPEAKER_02: We're taking people and diversifying our economy.
[15:08] SPEAKER_02: So I think there's some, you know, just an innate sense of accomplishment that comes with building something from scratch.
[15:18] SPEAKER_00: Now in terms of ideas or different kinds of whiskies and stuff, where did those come from?
[15:25] SPEAKER_02: Well, that I leave to the experts.
[15:28] SPEAKER_02: So I like everybody else from the consumer and I'm a facilitator.
[15:34] SPEAKER_02: But we have two very talented master distillers that both were trained in Scotland and have all of the talents and the pallet to create the new whiskies.
[15:48] SPEAKER_02: So I rely heavily on them and of course we look at all of the trends and what consumers are looking for.
[15:57] SPEAKER_02: We do all of the tastings with consumers to make sure that we're in line with what we want to see.
[16:03] SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I'm probably the most biased and the worst in actually creating what is the next best.
[16:12] SPEAKER_02: I think I have a team that do a great job on that.
[16:17] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, obviously being an entrepreneur, being a business owner is, you know, it's almost 24-7 job.
[16:25] SPEAKER_00: You either doing it or thinking about it a lot.
[16:29] SPEAKER_00: Like, do you find the you manage to find time to step away from work at all?
[16:36] SPEAKER_00: I know it's a tough thing.
[16:38] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, certainly it's all consuming.
[16:41] SPEAKER_02: But if you don't step away, you don't have fresh ideas.
[16:46] SPEAKER_02: You know, you can get, so you're breathing your own air.
[16:49] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a lot of different hobbies I do.
[16:52] SPEAKER_02: I, you know, it's linked to this, I suppose, but very different is that I'm a horse farmer.
[16:58] SPEAKER_02: I, I and a group of like-minded individuals have draft horses and we've bought old 1920s equipment at auctions.
[17:07] SPEAKER_02: And we farm about 20 acres of barley, all of which goes into the distillery and we create this.
[17:14] SPEAKER_02: I think it's the only whiskey in the world that's done completely start to finish traditional way.
[17:21] SPEAKER_02: So, but that is great hobby and it's a lot of fun.
[17:25] SPEAKER_02: And those draft horses keep you honest.
[17:27] SPEAKER_02: You know, they, there's something about a horse that is both non-judgmental and responsive.
[17:35] SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, I like to keep as fit as I can so that, you know, my mind is fit as well as my body.
[17:43] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[17:44] SPEAKER_02: And I like to go in the mountains.
[17:46] SPEAKER_02: I'm a very, you know, teen.
[17:48] SPEAKER_02: I love the fact that we live in this great province and that I have the mountains 20 minutes away and, you know, west of Turner Valley.
[17:57] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
[17:58] SPEAKER_00: Beautiful country out there, isn't it?
[18:00] SPEAKER_02: It is.
[18:01] SPEAKER_02: And certainly Turner Valley is blessed because we have, you know, the rolling foothills.
[18:06] SPEAKER_02: We can't go into some cells, but, you know, we're so close to Canada.
[18:09] SPEAKER_02: It's in the Rockies itself.
[18:11] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[18:13] SPEAKER_00: What about, you know, you mentioned the ranching and the farming background.
[18:19] SPEAKER_00: It almost conjures up in my mind images of, you know, the old cowboys and, you know, going into the saloon of their whiskey.
[18:29] SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, whiskey and cowboys, you know, you, you'll never sort of separate the two for images in in country songs.
[18:38] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[18:40] SPEAKER_02: Turner Valley was the apex of that culture back in the 20s.
[18:44] SPEAKER_02: I mean, they, this was where all of the big ratches were founded.
[18:48] SPEAKER_02: You know, the Bar U ranch is down the road, which was one of the first biggest ratch, the O.A. Tretch.
[18:54] SPEAKER_02: So there is definitely a cowboy culture in the area.
[18:58] SPEAKER_02: But this was the, the, the beginnings of sort of prohibition.
[19:02] SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, they discovered oil and turn of all in 1914.
[19:06] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[19:07] SPEAKER_02: They, all of the local men had signed up and gone to Europe.
[19:10] SPEAKER_02: So they brought in people to work from the U.S. the oil fields.
[19:15] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[19:15] SPEAKER_02: Even Churchill came out here to check and make sure there was enough oil for the first world war.
[19:21] SPEAKER_02: And so you have this wild frontier town and then prohibitioned Hittin.
[19:25] SPEAKER_02: So none of them could drink.
[19:26] SPEAKER_02: So they were speakeasies and I'm sitting in a room right now that historically was the town or delo.
[19:35] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we've, and, and so, and next to me is the theater and the next building down that's part of us was the original 1923 bowling alley.
[19:44] SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
[19:45] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we've kind of, we've certainly leaned into that history, but it's a very genuine connection to, to whiskey, which was all who'd laid up in the hills on a, on a ridge behind us called whiskey ridge.
[19:58] SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
[19:59] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[20:00] SPEAKER_00: If the walls could talking.
[20:01] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[20:03] Speaker UNKNOWN: Yeah.
[20:04] SPEAKER_00: No, that's a, it's fascinating, right?
[20:07] SPEAKER_00: And, but it's almost like it's in the DNA of the, the province, right?
[20:15] SPEAKER_00: That cowboy culture, ranching and whiskey and all that.
[20:21] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[20:21] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[20:22] SPEAKER_02: We have a, we have a strong culture in this province and it's something to be really proud of.
[20:27] SPEAKER_02: You know, we, not, not every place has the ability to lean into that like we do.
[20:31] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
[20:33] SPEAKER_00: Alrighty.
[20:34] SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks so much, David, for joining us today.
[20:37] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[20:38] SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me again.
[20:39] SPEAKER_00: It was great to, to talk to you.
[20:41] SPEAKER_00: All right. Wonderful.
[20:42] SPEAKER_00: That was David Ferrin, who is founder and president of O'Claire Distillery.
[20:47] SPEAKER_00: I'm Mario Tonoguzi, managing editor of Canada's podcast with Calgary's podcast today.
[20:52] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
