The whiskey’s in the barrels; the waiting begins

Photo by Vince Fedoroff

“Does it smell like moonshine?”

Bob Baxter asks the question with a grin as he walks through the door into the Yukon Brewing Company’s brewery.

The smell seems to be more of beer than the start of whiskey – until Baxter passes a small glass of clear liquid taken from a huge square plastic tub sitting next to brewing equipment fitted with new gadgets for the first part of at least a three-year process to produce whiskey.

“It’s basically green moonshine,” he says as he passes the glass.

His excitement for the latest alcohol to be made by the brewing company is obvious as he walks through the production area.

Changes to the territory’s Liquor Act have made the commercial production of spirits possible, but Yukon Brewing has been preparing for the changes for years.

In 2007, an addition was built onto the company’s Quartz Road building. There, 36 barrels are now sitting: 10 are full of the first batch of whiskey made in the facility and another 11 will be filled next week.

In Canada, the spirit must sit in a barrel for at least three years before it can be marketed as whiskey, Baxter explains.

“We’re not in Scotland; we can’t call it scotch,” he says, adding the final product will be a single malt whiskey.

This is all new for the company that until now has been known for its wide variety of local beers that range from its Chilkoot Lager to more seasonal brands like its Winter Ale.

While beer has a short shelf life, whiskey is much different. Depending on the outcome, Baxter says, it may even be five or 10 years before this whiskey has aged enough to be sold.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Baxter quickly quips when it’s noted the risk in producing a spirit that’s at least three years in the making.

When the company looked at producing spirits, it used the same model that’s been successful with its beer. The beer giants, he says, are great at producing lighter beers. Where Yukon Brewing is successful is in creating thicker, more flavourful unique brands.

Similarly, whiskey is a more flavourful type of alcohol than, say, the virtually flavourless vodka.

“The thing about whiskey is it’s all about flavour,” Baxter says.

Getting to that flavour begins with a three-day fermentation process. That’s a lot shorter than what staff at the brewing company are used to, with beer taking between two weeks and a month to ferment.

For that first part, the company was able to make use of its beer equipment, taking the stack off one of the beer kettles and adding CARL – the distiller.

It’s then put into the giant plastic boxes before heading further into the back of the building where the distilling process continues before it’s stored in the 200-litre oak barrels which came from Heaven Hills Distilleries in Kentucky, a bourbon distillery.

Like whiskey, there are certain criteria for bourbon to hold that name when it’s sold and among those, the barrels can only be used once.

They’re then sold to whiskey makers like the Yukon Brewing Company, which can use second-hand barrels, Baxter explains.

The company, he says, will have to buy more barrels each year, not to mention the thousands that will go into grain and labour to produce the new brand of whiskey.

“We’re pretty sure it’ll turn into something drinkable,” Baxter says, once again grinning and later commenting that if nothing else comes of it, he may end up spending his retirement sipping whiskey.

The recipe for the Yukon’s first commercial whiskey comes from two guys in the distilling field, one in Alberta, one in Ontario, along with Yukon Brewing’s own tweaks to the ingredients. Depending on what this first batch tastes like, Baxter says changes to the recipe may be made as the company continues to perfect the flavour.

Inside his office, Baxter has a box full of small jars he’s using to collect samples of the drink each 30 days. So far, only one jar has liquid in it, starting to gain some colour.

Placing a bottle of whiskey next to his jar, he notes the colour of the Yukon Brewing Company’s version is getting closer to that of the store-bought brand, though he admits when he first looked at it, he was wondering whether he might have just been seeing what he wanted to see. It’s clear he wasn’t.

The bottle of the store-bought brand doesn’t specify how much it has aged, but as Baxter points out it’s at least three years old.

As for the product name when it hits stores, Baxter says there are some ideas floating around the office. Outside of it including the Yukon in the brand name – a feature the board of the company has made clear must be there – no final decision has been made.

With the whiskey still just getting its colour, it’s hard to say whether the bottles will suit the drink, he says.

The bottles have been ordered and a graphic design logo will be created to be placed directly on the bottles.

With the last of the 2009 batch – or Year 0 in whiskey terms – set to be put into barrels likely next week, the 11 full-time staff members won’t have much down time as the whiskey ages.

Next week, the kettle that’s been used for the whiskey will be undergo a very thorough cleaning involving acid and caustic cleaners before it’s used to create the suds Yukon Brewing is best known for.

The stack will be put back on the kettle and it will once again be used to make beer.

In February, the company is scheduled to get a new bottle filler to replace the 50-year-old version it’s using now.

Heading to the back of the building, Baxter points to another old bottle filler he bought second-hand from a trade publication. It’s not in use, but is there for spare parts.

“It’s kind of like having an old car in your yard,” Baxter says as he outlined a number of parts that have been taken off and put onto the company’s useable filler.

The “new” one, which will come from California, is 15 years old. A brand new version would be out of the company’s price range, but this will give them something much better than what they currently have, likely also improving the quality of Yukon Brewing’s bottled beer.

Baxter notes it’s among the “Cadillac” of bottle fillers.

Though producing the whiskey has left the company with one less kettle for beer over the last few weeks, Baxter says there’s no danger of any beer shortage.

In fact, it’s been quite the opposite, he says, stating the demand for beer put the whiskey production behind until the end of the year.

The whiskey is a great project during the winter months when demand for beer drops off, he says.

And that’s not where it ends. In the works for the spring is another type of spirits that doesn’t have the same waiting period as whiskey.

As Baxter notes though, the company is still working on exactly what that will be and incorporating Yukon favours into it. Officials had hoped to have something on the market earlier this year, but the recipe wasn’t quite right.

Baxter seems a bit of a perfectionist as he comments: “It’s not right until it’s right.”