Two former engineers pursued their passion a few years ago to establish the ‘spirits’ making company Bridgeland Distillery

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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:05] SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to Calgary's podcast with Mario Toneguzi on Canada's podcast network.
[00:12] SPEAKER_01: Joining me today is Daniel Plensik and Jacques Tombley, who are the founders and owners
[00:18] SPEAKER_01: of Bridgeland Distillery in Calgary.
[00:21] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us today guys.
[00:23] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thanks Mario.
[00:24] SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
[00:25] SPEAKER_01: Okay, first of all, I got to ask, I see a big thing in the background behind you.
[00:30] SPEAKER_01: What is that?
[00:32] SPEAKER_03: It's a beautiful traditional pot still.
[00:37] Speaker UNKNOWN: The whole Jacques and I went down to the Taken to see some of the larger, uh, main factories
[00:45] SPEAKER_03: of beautiful stills for making whiskies and burpees, you know, brandy's crap out of
[00:52] Speaker UNKNOWN: 
[00:53] SPEAKER_03: So we went down to the Taken and we built this bridge to come from.
[00:58] Speaker UNKNOWN: And like we made all our vessels here at the Distillery at different bridges.
[01:03] Speaker UNKNOWN: But we made our bubby's bridge, so it's bubby's behind us from bubby building Taken.
[01:09] SPEAKER_01: Okay, and just out of curiosity, how much of that baby cost?
[01:15] SPEAKER_03: Oh, well, it's like a frog.
[01:20] SPEAKER_01: Okay, we'll leave it at that.
[01:22] SPEAKER_03: That's the best of the best, yeah.
[01:24] SPEAKER_01: First of all, guys, tell me just a little bit about Bridgeland Distillery when you guys
[01:30] SPEAKER_01: started it and what you guys do.
[01:34] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so we started here in Bridgeland back in 2018.
[01:40] SPEAKER_03: We started construction at this building.
[01:42] SPEAKER_03: We got six months into construction and that we were ready to start production.
[01:48] SPEAKER_03: We opened the public in August 2019.
[01:51] SPEAKER_03: So it's been a year and a half now.
[01:53] SPEAKER_03: They're all built and with receiving gas and the customer.
[01:59] SPEAKER_01: Okay, super.
[02:00] SPEAKER_01: And so obviously there is a seating area there.
[02:04] SPEAKER_01: There when COVID restrictions are fine.
[02:10] SPEAKER_01: And so you added the distillery together, right?
[02:13] SPEAKER_01: Just as for our folks that are maybe not here from Calgary that don't know, right?
[02:19] SPEAKER_01: Okay, super.
[02:21] SPEAKER_01: Tell me a little bit about your backgrounds and what were you doing prior to starting this
[02:31] SPEAKER_01: business?
[02:31] SPEAKER_01: Daniel, start with you.
[02:32] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean both John and I are engineers first.
[02:38] SPEAKER_03: I could John and I didn't know each other until we met at the Distillery force in the
[02:44] SPEAKER_03: open august 2016.
[02:45] SPEAKER_03: But before that, I guess I was born in Bridgeland where it's been created from Italy.
[02:52] SPEAKER_03: It's more near, went to school here, different schools here in Bridgeland, Brickfield and
[02:57] SPEAKER_03: then just went to the St. Francis.
[02:59] SPEAKER_03: Went to University of Dalton, you got my electrical engineering job right there.
[03:04] SPEAKER_03: It's a geomatically system.
[03:05] SPEAKER_03: I eventually I worked at the oil and gas industry for both 20 years and look at genres
[03:11] SPEAKER_03: in critical services 9.1.
[03:14] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was a public safety knife with one software sign.
[03:17] SPEAKER_03: So quite different.
[03:19] Speaker UNKNOWN: So when we met, we got a couple of notes and the desire to start the business in a
[03:25] SPEAKER_03: completely different field.
[03:27] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean my entire life, like, job, we were brewing.
[03:32] SPEAKER_03: I was doing a different line of job, just doing different gear.
[03:36] SPEAKER_03: You know, I heard once in a while you tried your head and it was still like not lined
[03:41] SPEAKER_03: into brandy.
[03:42] SPEAKER_03: A lot of talent with the major group, you know, taking those great skills, it's still
[03:46] SPEAKER_03: like into drama.
[03:48] SPEAKER_03: And we were talking about, actually, we had a passion for it and we decided what we wanted
[03:53] SPEAKER_03: to take that passion and make it a second career.
[03:56] SPEAKER_01: Okay, super.
[03:57] SPEAKER_01: Let me just ask you guys, like, recently you received some awards, right, for some of
[04:03] SPEAKER_01: your spirits.
[04:06] SPEAKER_01: Can you tell me what those awards were?
[04:09] SPEAKER_01: And then maybe we'll even make some of those winners.
[04:15] SPEAKER_03: Because a few of them here that if we won in the over the better towards a judges selection,
[04:20] SPEAKER_03: just most recently, just a photo we get a half a gold.
[04:24] SPEAKER_03: Four dollars, we have a front of us here, just one, that it had the Canadian Ferguson
[04:30] SPEAKER_03: Spirit competition.
[04:32] SPEAKER_03: It's for all Canadian, they submit their bottles for the tasting.
[04:40] SPEAKER_03: And yeah, everyone's a little bit of a seller.
[04:43] SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's try one.
[04:48] SPEAKER_02: Let's start with the bottom.
[04:51] SPEAKER_01: Bottom beam.
[04:51] SPEAKER_02: Bottom beam.
[04:52] SPEAKER_02: It's actually, it's a party.
[04:54] SPEAKER_01: Okay, I got my little sample here.
[05:00] SPEAKER_03: So this is an image, most active grain.
[05:04] SPEAKER_03: So I need to be in an absolutely no color.
[05:07] SPEAKER_03: It's a perfectly clear spirit.
[05:09] SPEAKER_03: That talent comes off still quite a few times.
[05:15] SPEAKER_03: It's perfectly clear.
[05:17] SPEAKER_03: We used for this product 100% most active grapes for my sketch.
[05:24] SPEAKER_02: Okay.
[05:25] SPEAKER_03: The grapes come from this product from California.
[05:30] SPEAKER_03: We see grapes through start bonus times for here.
[05:34] SPEAKER_03: And yeah, it's our first sip.
[05:37] SPEAKER_03: Okay, thank you.
[05:42] SPEAKER_00: It's a very refreshing product.
[05:45] SPEAKER_03: It is.
[05:46] SPEAKER_03: I get a lot of like pears, like peaches, like you leave a value on the enrollment.
[05:53] SPEAKER_03: This product, one, a whole better than the OVB category.
[05:59] SPEAKER_01: So where do you get your names from for your spirits?
[06:03] SPEAKER_03: Our names.
[06:05] SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's funny.
[06:06] SPEAKER_03: We take our life to make spirits that we can't actually call out their standard names.
[06:13] SPEAKER_03: For example, we make a scotch, but we take called scotch, the scotch.
[06:18] SPEAKER_03: The only thing they, it's common.
[06:20] Speaker UNKNOWN: We made a graph, we cannot call it a grapha because it's got to be made in Italy for a small town to Chino, Switzerland.
[06:30] SPEAKER_03: Urban is another one.
[06:32] SPEAKER_03: We can't actually call it urban, the OVB or the OVB because that's again a protected name in the US.
[06:38] SPEAKER_03: So our urban is actually a chartered vehicle.
[06:41] SPEAKER_03: After hearing the coordinates derived from which is from Tiga.
[06:45] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[06:46] SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you in general, you know, there's, I guess in the last few years, there's been quite a movement,
[06:55] SPEAKER_01: a popularity movement towards distilleries, towards craft beer places.
[07:03] SPEAKER_01: Why do you think that's happening in the world?
[07:07] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a question.
[07:08] SPEAKER_03: I think it's part of the local and slow food movement where everyone wants to get back to what everything should be tasting like.
[07:21] SPEAKER_03: So this craft movement is like you said, it's really still evolving in popularity.
[07:27] SPEAKER_03: And it's, it illustrates that everyone, when I say everyone, everyone in their particular location can produce something unique and something that is flavorful and taste the difference from the next problem or the next city over.
[07:42] Speaker UNKNOWN: For instance, we're using grains for whiskeys that are just a big roll within a hundred miles of the distillery.
[07:51] Speaker UNKNOWN: We take our meat and barley and all just some of it here and our our corn and paper.
[07:59] SPEAKER_03: So for us, it's important that ingredients are local.
[08:03] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, just like on the one side, we have grapes from California, but we also have grapes from the open up the valley.
[08:10] SPEAKER_03: So it's important for us.
[08:13] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's that movement, that local movement is unbelievable.
[08:17] SPEAKER_01: You know, these days, you know, you're seeing it more and more in different areas.
[08:23] SPEAKER_01: What about, you know, just the whiskey side of things.
[08:28] SPEAKER_01: There seems to be, I don't know if you want to use the word rebirth, but in some ways there seems to be a rebirth in whiskey and cocktails and stuff like that.
[08:40] SPEAKER_01: Why do you think that's happening?
[08:42] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so welcome.
[08:44] SPEAKER_03: What's interesting with the whiskey world is going in Scotland with their scotch whiskey and single call of flavor and Kentucky and the US general with the verb.
[08:56] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's been a rebirth in the last 20 year in the last 15 years on that.
[09:01] SPEAKER_03: Why is that rebirth?
[09:02] SPEAKER_03: I think what happened in the 80s, like everyone was about wanted a life flavor.
[09:09] SPEAKER_03: And that's like a gin and vodka where all of a sudden green poplar.
[09:13] SPEAKER_03: But after that, people start looking for more flavor.
[09:17] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they realize that scotch has broken and I'm past it amongst the flavor.
[09:22] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
[09:23] SPEAKER_01: Okay, guys, time for the second tasting. What's one we're going to try?
[09:27] SPEAKER_03: We'll try what we call a tropical, a good, but extreme, or what to be.
[09:33] SPEAKER_03: What we usually use water life, we make what the bean, which is water from the bomb.
[09:40] SPEAKER_03: Again, you can't call it a crap. That's why it's being a.
[09:46] SPEAKER_01: Daniel being a.
[09:49] SPEAKER_01: As I for now, Daniel being Italian, you know, maybe a lot of people out there that are not as fortunate. Sorry, Jacques.
[09:59] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, being Italian.
[10:02] SPEAKER_01: Can tell you tell people and explain to people what crap is.
[10:06] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so if you just feel different beers, you make whiskey.
[10:11] SPEAKER_03: You just feel different wine.
[10:13] SPEAKER_03: You make brandy.
[10:14] SPEAKER_03: If you take the grape skins, that we actually, what we do is we prevent them separately.
[10:19] SPEAKER_03: Typically, we're using white riles. In this case, the different sugar.
[10:22] SPEAKER_03: We take those skins out and they've been pressed.
[10:25] SPEAKER_03: And they're still residual sugars. We prevent them separately.
[10:29] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we distill those entire skins in the scale.
[10:32] SPEAKER_03: We actually take those whole skin, and it's easier.
[10:35] SPEAKER_03: And this will be alcohol, a lot.
[10:38] SPEAKER_03: We get very little product because there's very little alcohol to get with it.
[10:43] SPEAKER_03: Those skins.
[10:43] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it takes us about.
[10:46] SPEAKER_03: During the season, 68 weeks, to be our distillations of just the skins alone.
[10:51] SPEAKER_03: It's a short period.
[10:52] SPEAKER_03: It's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun.
[10:54] SPEAKER_03: Normally, you see, you grab a kind of, like, an unaged style similar to our pot of beer.
[11:03] Speaker UNKNOWN: But this one in particular, what we get is we aged it in French and the Casino barrels.
[11:08] Speaker UNKNOWN: These barrels were painted in 20 minutes from my expirte.
[11:13] SPEAKER_03: So, to me, it's low on.
[11:15] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[11:15] SPEAKER_01: Gentleman, enjoy.
[11:19] SPEAKER_03: Now, the aroma, the aroma is a lot of light.
[11:24] Speaker UNKNOWN: I get a lot of light on the nerves.
[11:27] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[11:27] SPEAKER_03: I have a cocktail that uses this in cocktail with light tea.
[11:31] SPEAKER_01: Okay, got, got to ask you.
[11:34] SPEAKER_01: How does, how does your, and not to mention any names, of course, but how does what you produce there compared to some of the old Italians.
[11:45] SPEAKER_03: Well, I can't even compare it to those stuff I used to make in the grab as well.
[11:49] SPEAKER_03: Rayleigh, it's way better, of course.
[11:53] SPEAKER_03: I mean, I've had the best and the worst drop in it.
[11:58] SPEAKER_03: Some of the worst I've had in some very small restaurants where they were making the room.
[12:05] SPEAKER_03: And, in the best, I've had some beautiful disabilities.
[12:08] SPEAKER_03: And then, one was a baritone.
[12:09] SPEAKER_03: And, it's a kind of some inspiration from them, with their each draws and squire reaching our drops as well.
[12:18] SPEAKER_03: This wrap is not each bit.
[12:20] SPEAKER_03: We're finding most people with the birds of Trigger this time.
[12:24] SPEAKER_03: And that's what we're doing.
[12:25] SPEAKER_01: Okay. Maybe, maybe Jacques, you can answer this question.
[12:29] SPEAKER_01: Tell me a little bit about the business model in terms of where you sell the product to.
[12:36] SPEAKER_03: Yeah. So initially, all the products were sold out of our tasting booths,
[12:41] SPEAKER_03: because we're allowed to sell quite a lot of bottles here in Calgary and Alberta from the distillery.
[12:47] SPEAKER_03: But could you realize that to be successful, we need to be in liquor store.
[12:52] SPEAKER_03: Now, to be in liquor store across Canada, each provincial body regularly is selling alcohol.
[13:01] SPEAKER_03: So right now, we're limited to Alberta, because we have gone into the procedure,
[13:07] SPEAKER_03: the process is registered in other provinces.
[13:10] SPEAKER_03: So we're in maybe Calgary and starting to get in,
[13:14] SPEAKER_03: probably in 45 different store across the province right now.
[13:20] SPEAKER_01: Okay. And you guys also customized, for a lack of a better word,
[13:27] SPEAKER_01: a different product for different businesses, right?
[13:34] SPEAKER_01: Like you've done special, special whiskeys for certain companies, right?
[13:40] SPEAKER_03: Yeah. So a good example is this borrow.
[13:43] SPEAKER_03: We did it with collaboration with Spargel,
[13:47] SPEAKER_03: who's a fairly famous daily here in Calgary.
[13:51] SPEAKER_03: And the approach us last fall in 2019.
[13:55] SPEAKER_03: And they wanted to have a bottle of wine,
[14:00] SPEAKER_03: I spur their specs basically.
[14:03] SPEAKER_03: We like it so much that the I spent the provision to use their name to continue selling it.
[14:08] SPEAKER_03: And they were really at the end on our food.
[14:11] SPEAKER_01: Well, one of my family's favorites.
[14:15] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[14:18] SPEAKER_01: Okay, we'll do that one at the end.
[14:20] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[14:23] SPEAKER_01: Let me talk.
[14:25] SPEAKER_01: Is there, you know, with the explosion that we've seen in Alberta and locally here in Calgary,
[14:32] SPEAKER_01: of craft breweries, of distilleries?
[14:34] SPEAKER_01: Is there a danger of over saturation in the market?
[14:40] SPEAKER_01: How do you guys feel about that?
[14:43] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think it's, it's not, we're not near the point of saturation.
[14:48] SPEAKER_03: You have to know that the craft distilling on the shelf is only represent a small fraction of the big player.
[14:56] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[14:56] SPEAKER_03: And everyone now is so interested in, in a big at local.
[15:00] SPEAKER_03: I think it right now, the old sales for a deal to represent three of.
[15:05] SPEAKER_03: We meeting the craft movement, only represent three to five percent of what's available on the shelves.
[15:13] SPEAKER_03: So it's still very, very small in comparison of the whole industry.
[15:20] SPEAKER_03: And I think because everyone's trying to find their own, their own beach.
[15:27] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's room for more play.
[15:30] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we're probably still about four to five years behind the craft movement.
[15:35] Speaker UNKNOWN: I mean, in our group of minutes, and I exploded a little bit like this.
[15:41] Speaker UNKNOWN: It's quite amazing.
[15:43] SPEAKER_03: I think there's only what seven or eight craft skills.
[15:48] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, same job.
[15:50] SPEAKER_01: Okay, super.
[15:51] SPEAKER_01: Okay, what's one next guys?
[15:53] SPEAKER_03: We're doing the urban, paper porn bourbon.
[15:57] SPEAKER_03: This is the bourbon made of 60% more, about 30% barley and 10% wheat.
[16:07] SPEAKER_03: So it's a weeded bourbon.
[16:10] SPEAKER_03: Okay.
[16:11] SPEAKER_03: And yeah, what's unique is where the porn's coming from, the favorite.
[16:15] SPEAKER_03: Everyone knows the sweet corn of the favorite.
[16:18] Speaker UNKNOWN: And we were fortunate to be shot that and meet with the family and growing their corn in the paper comp.
[16:25] SPEAKER_03: And they're providing us with the point to make that person.
[16:31] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, obviously, you know, for people, these are people in Alberta and Southern Alberta will know all about paper corn.
[16:37] SPEAKER_01: But for other viewers who may be watching this from the rest of the country, tell us about why paper corn is so good.
[16:46] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so to be your corn is typically super sweet, the sweet corn that isn't seasoned in August.
[16:52] SPEAKER_03: Here in Alberta, it's everywhere.
[16:54] SPEAKER_03: There's lots of stuff on the side of the road selling it.
[16:58] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[16:58] SPEAKER_03: And it became like a tradition, a tradition in August and September to have it with your meals.
[17:05] SPEAKER_03: So we thought it made sense to make a bourbon.
[17:08] SPEAKER_03: Okay.
[17:09] SPEAKER_03: So we're recording that, I mean, just like the BC, they're probably the channel app porn and material, they're probably their corn as well.
[17:17] SPEAKER_01: I'm going to show people the label here.
[17:21] SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what, that doesn't work because it turns backwards, never mind.
[17:25] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so this one is a bit higher on the alcohol by 12.
[17:29] SPEAKER_03: We're at 45, it's only 42 for a traditional bourbon.
[17:34] SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's try it.
[17:35] SPEAKER_03: Nice color.
[17:36] SPEAKER_03: It's been in the cast for about 12 months.
[17:40] SPEAKER_03: And there's lots of notes of caramel, sweet caramel, basically fresh straws and corn as well.
[17:49] SPEAKER_01: Excellent. Thanks.
[17:51] SPEAKER_01: I'm going to switch gears and talk a little bit about being entrepreneurs, you know, in this day and age.
[17:59] SPEAKER_01: Now, I presume just by your background, you both worked for quote unquote, the man, right?
[18:06] SPEAKER_01: In your careers, what's it like being your own bosses, your own being an entrepreneur?
[18:14] SPEAKER_03: It's amazing.
[18:15] SPEAKER_03: I mean, everything's on you.
[18:18] SPEAKER_03: It's, yeah, I mean, Jack and I have a basic relationship.
[18:22] SPEAKER_03: I would never do a business by myself, either a job.
[18:26] SPEAKER_03: It's just, it was just too many, too many things that are going in parallel.
[18:33] SPEAKER_03: You need to make sure you have a business partner that has, you know, good attributes that you go to that kind of thing.
[18:40] SPEAKER_03: So we're actually going to point good, but you know, one is a little bit better at one thing.
[18:49] SPEAKER_03: They take care of that.
[18:50] SPEAKER_03: So the other one is better than the other experience, probably.
[18:53] SPEAKER_01: So kind of the young, kind of the yin and yang thing.
[18:57] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
[18:58] SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
[19:00] Speaker UNKNOWN: It's the number one important thing first called going into business.
[19:04] Speaker UNKNOWN: It's really a marriage outside of a marriage, right?
[19:10] SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much.
[19:12] SPEAKER_03: So you know, I did something I learned that used to own his own business as an electrical engineer.
[19:20] SPEAKER_03: I was operating a large business owned by Americans, but it's something that I might, I didn't see the need for it,
[19:29] SPEAKER_03: but to our conversation, I realized that that's the way to go through so many big parts.
[19:36] SPEAKER_03: And it can be overwhelming, but factored both of us make sense.
[19:42] SPEAKER_01: So what's the best thing from your perspective of being an entrepreneur?
[19:47] SPEAKER_01: What do you like the most about?
[19:50] SPEAKER_03: Well, just, I mean, putting your stand forward in your product business.
[19:54] SPEAKER_03: I mean, I took a lot of pride in it, Chair.
[19:58] SPEAKER_03: As well, like, when I did it to someone, I did it as though it was my own.
[20:03] SPEAKER_03: I was my own facility.
[20:04] SPEAKER_03: Now we're doing it.
[20:05] SPEAKER_03: The truly is our own product.
[20:08] SPEAKER_03: So just putting our stand forward, I think.
[20:11] SPEAKER_03: I guess, like, some sort of big factor in the society.
[20:18] SPEAKER_01: So when you look back, when you started the business,
[20:22] SPEAKER_01: and what were some of the biggest challenges of starting a new business?
[20:28] SPEAKER_03: That's a good question.
[20:30] SPEAKER_03: I think, well, first of all, because we needed to build a space with the right equipment,
[20:36] SPEAKER_03: the initial phases where all designed a whole operation before you, and I think I've done that, right?
[20:45] SPEAKER_03: I mean, we have visited a lot of the still room for the years, whether it's Canada or the US, to Canada.
[20:51] SPEAKER_03: And Italy and so on.
[20:53] SPEAKER_03: And we tried to find out what was working, what was not working.
[20:58] SPEAKER_03: So we would learn from the mistakes of other things.
[21:02] SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, and actually, basically, that's a design in this space where we're important for successful operation today.
[21:13] Speaker UNKNOWN: Yeah, this is model.
[21:15] Speaker UNKNOWN: We aren't making Jim Focker quick market.
[21:21] SPEAKER_03: We like Jim Focker, but it's not our passion.
[21:23] SPEAKER_03: We're not passionate about it.
[21:25] SPEAKER_03: So everything we can do to make it easy, it takes time.
[21:28] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[21:29] Speaker UNKNOWN: But the most ancient guy that is teaching patients for sure, we got wait for years to call our single model, the single model based.
[21:40] SPEAKER_03: It just takes a long time.
[21:41] SPEAKER_03: So I guess that's a huge challenge is trying to ensure that also on the financial side, because we aren't good to market with Jim Focker,
[21:51] SPEAKER_03: because then we can take a do that here.
[21:53] SPEAKER_01: Okay, now I think I know Danny, you're born and raised in Calgary, right?
[22:00] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[22:00] SPEAKER_01: Jacques, you're from where originally?
[22:03] SPEAKER_01: To Mexico City.
[22:04] SPEAKER_03: So I was from Mexico City being on the St. Lawrence River, so that's where I was from.
[22:10] SPEAKER_01: So when did you move to Calgary?
[22:13] SPEAKER_03: We arrived in Calgary 22 years ago.
[22:16] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[22:16] SPEAKER_03: I was working for a software company then.
[22:22] SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let me ask you guys about being an entrepreneur these days in Calgary.
[22:28] SPEAKER_01: Now we all know Calgary's gone through some really wicked, tough times in the last, well really last six, seven years, really.
[22:37] SPEAKER_01: I'll start it with the oil price collapse in late 2014.
[22:44] SPEAKER_01: And we really never recovered from that.
[22:46] SPEAKER_01: And then of course the pandemic is added to the roles of the economy here.
[22:54] SPEAKER_01: What's it been like starting a business during a recession?
[22:58] SPEAKER_01: Like basically because you guys really did.
[23:00] SPEAKER_01: Like it's, you know, you know, we may have had ups and downs types thing in the last few years.
[23:06] SPEAKER_01: But you know, since late 2014 Calgary's really been in a recession, right?
[23:11] SPEAKER_01: So what's it that likes starting a business during that time?
[23:14] SPEAKER_03: Well, starting a business week, we kind of revert that recession time, I guess.
[23:20] SPEAKER_03: I mean, even our dollar versus the US dollar was quite different.
[23:24] SPEAKER_03: So even though we were reminded of the US, had a huge impact on the capital space, the initial investment, right?
[23:34] SPEAKER_03: It's, I guess, what for us for the bulk of it?
[23:38] Speaker UNKNOWN: It's in New York, but today, I mean, we're getting shut down.
[23:44] Speaker UNKNOWN: At that time, like Jacques was making, we were quite slowly selling out of our distillery.
[23:50] Speaker UNKNOWN: And, I was going to call it a day that we could get back to this, which we weren't doing many different things.
[23:57] SPEAKER_03: So we were fortunate enough, like, you guys, you think the source of the sun,
[24:02] SPEAKER_03: we were attempting to have your block of the sun.
[24:05] SPEAKER_03: At that time, we had a square making some hand sanitizer as well for our health services.
[24:12] SPEAKER_03: That kind of thing that helped us get through.
[24:14] SPEAKER_03: And we started on on the store, really the community really came together and supported us.
[24:22] SPEAKER_03: We, in terms of the back, we donated a lot of sanitizer, for example, the drop-in center.
[24:28] SPEAKER_03: The blocks were waiting for you.
[24:30] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think the word agility is key here, right?
[24:35] SPEAKER_03: You need to learn, and it's a cliche, I know, when you start a business, like learn to build fast, right?
[24:41] SPEAKER_03: But we really have to find out what's working, and from week to week, or month to month,
[24:47] SPEAKER_03: we assist with working, and what's not quickly.
[24:50] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
[24:51] SPEAKER_01: Okay, guys, time to try the last one.
[24:54] SPEAKER_01: And just as a preamble to this, you know, this is a Spalumbos Amaro.
[25:01] SPEAKER_01: And my good friend, Johnny Spalotini, one of the owners, with Mike Palumbo at Spalumbos in Calgary,
[25:09] SPEAKER_01: one of the best places to get sausage in the city.
[25:14] SPEAKER_01: Anyways, can you tell me the story, first of all, about how this beauty came about?
[25:20] SPEAKER_01: It happens to be my family favorite as well.
[25:24] SPEAKER_03: So, first of all, at Amaro, it's a bittersweet liquor and Italian style.
[25:29] SPEAKER_03: It's in the St. Bambi, a product that proper liquor from Germany, like the Jagger Maister, basically.
[25:36] SPEAKER_03: But in Italy, the big pride of that, the distance, flavor profile, but it's not one flavor, it's many flavors.
[25:46] SPEAKER_03: We chose to work with Spalumbo and other companies to come up with it, based on what they like.
[25:53] SPEAKER_03: So, it's really failed forward, had this forward.
[25:57] SPEAKER_03: There's cinnamon in there, and how we make it, we started with a brandy,
[26:04] SPEAKER_03: similar to what that thing is, and the Maistery, the herbs, and the old Maidix,
[26:10] SPEAKER_03: and the base of that liquor.
[26:15] SPEAKER_03: The nice red dark color comes from a couple of components,
[26:21] SPEAKER_03: meaning cranberries is in there to give that color.
[26:24] SPEAKER_01: Oh really, wow. Okay, let's give it a whirl.
[26:30] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we're super grateful, obviously, for Spalumbo, and they called the Friday Club,
[26:36] SPEAKER_03: there was five members of the club, they came together, did a distinguished tour,
[26:42] SPEAKER_03: and honestly, it was great at the beginning of the winter, when we opened the tasting room,
[26:46] Speaker UNKNOWN: and they gave it the purchase of a bunch of halvos from us.
[26:51] SPEAKER_03: It was really good at starting around us, they helped us, and it just great people.
[26:56] SPEAKER_01: Okay guys, so, I'm going to ask you kind of a stupid question, but,
[27:03] SPEAKER_01: how do you not finish off work each day coming out of the shop stumbling drunk?
[27:12] SPEAKER_03: You got to learn to spit, it's really hard.
[27:17] SPEAKER_03: Here are days, when you know, like obviously, when we do our spirit runs of local football,
[27:23] Speaker UNKNOWN: we're collecting the good spirit that we're drinking today.
[27:29] SPEAKER_03: There's only so much instrumentation you can do for you, you have to really taste the product,
[27:34] SPEAKER_03: to make sure you're still in the good product, pretty good soul.
[27:38] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but yeah, you're definitely spitting it's important.
[27:43] SPEAKER_01: So, what do you guys do, and you're spare time, like what an interest do you have outside of Macon Whiskey?
[27:54] SPEAKER_03: Or Abbey's up to you, we're making whiskey,
[27:58] SPEAKER_03: just turn that into our work.
[28:02] SPEAKER_03: I mean, like Dan, I like Al Corours, I like, I think I like skiing.
[28:07] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I love fishing, I'm dig, it's all a lot of work techniques, that kind of thing.
[28:14] SPEAKER_01: So, those are types of things you know, in this day and age,
[28:18] SPEAKER_01: we all talk about, everybody talks about that work, life balance, right?
[28:23] SPEAKER_01: And when you're an entrepreneur, you know, when you're an entrepreneur,
[28:27] SPEAKER_01: you're on 24-7 basically, right?
[28:30] SPEAKER_01: And do you guys feel you have, you know, with the other people?
[28:35] SPEAKER_03: I heard that on my last business, I think, say that, do we get 24-7?
[28:40] SPEAKER_03: And all these elements, it's not going to work on the long run this year.
[28:45] SPEAKER_03: So, we've tried to know that anytime it's about any unique, unique to take the time.
[28:50] SPEAKER_03: We do have fabrics, we have a gift, so that kind of, like, really, it's very important.
[28:56] SPEAKER_03: This is a secondary for your first pair, so you guys take a very big, so, so it's very important to.
[29:01] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and that thing, we build this facility, so we don't have to work,
[29:07] SPEAKER_03: we have to work in here, or as a baby, we have efficiency that we've run this operation.
[29:13] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[29:13] SPEAKER_03: And on the schedule site, that is earlier, we hear at 6.30, and I'm probably here a lot later,
[29:21] SPEAKER_03: but I'm staying a lot later, so we have a good conference between Dan and I on the whole process.
[29:27] SPEAKER_01: Okay, so everybody knows, you know, I know you guys quite well,
[29:31] SPEAKER_01: and I visit your spot often, looking over my shoulder over on this side,
[29:38] SPEAKER_01: you see the bottles there, big fans up there.
[29:42] SPEAKER_01: But, you know, what I sense and get from both of you,
[29:47] SPEAKER_01: like, you guys are really enjoying what you're doing, right?
[29:51] SPEAKER_03: Love it.
[29:52] SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
[29:54] SPEAKER_01: Is that a key for people?
[29:56] SPEAKER_01: You know, they always say that, you know, find something that you love doing,
[30:00] SPEAKER_01: and it doesn't seem to be like work.
[30:02] SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like a key, cliché term, but you find that with yourselves.
[30:07] SPEAKER_03: 100% like, what I did, I was very, very, a lot of people do me get here,
[30:12] Speaker UNKNOWN: just over time, you know, 20 years, a while in, and they wanted to change things, right?
[30:19] Speaker UNKNOWN: People like it, they're interested in their guests.
[30:21] SPEAKER_03: And, yeah, I mean, most of your day is going to be at work,
[30:26] SPEAKER_03: if I was the love work I do.
[30:29] Speaker UNKNOWN: Okay, yeah, John.
[30:30] Speaker UNKNOWN: Yeah, I'd say life is short.
[30:32] Speaker UNKNOWN: So, when you're into your 40s and 50s, it's important to think what you want to do,
[30:37] SPEAKER_03: and then what you want to know is new, right?
[30:40] SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's things that you've been doing all your career,
[30:43] SPEAKER_03: but there's things that it's in the back of your mind as a project later on,
[30:47] SPEAKER_03: so you decide that that's the way for me to do it now.
[30:51] SPEAKER_01: Okay, super.
[30:52] SPEAKER_01: Hey, well, thanks a lot, guys, for joining us today.
[30:54] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for the samples. They were fantastic.
[30:57] SPEAKER_01: As always, I really enjoyed the conversation today with both of you.
[31:03] SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much, Mayor.
[31:04] SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
[31:05] SPEAKER_01: Okay, super. That was Calgary's podcast with Mario Taniguchi, on Canada's podcast network.
[31:12] SPEAKER_01: And with us today, we're Daniel Plinsick and Jacques Prombley,
[31:16] SPEAKER_01: owners and founders of Bridgeland Distillery in Calgary.
[31:21] SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us today.