Chicken Bones Liquor Creator Brews Up Spicy New Holiday Treat
WATERVILLE-CARLETON COUNTY–The distiller behind New Brunswick’s hot-selling Chicken Bones Liqueur and an iconic Maritime molasses maker have come up with a new concoction to stay warm this holiday season.
Moonshine Creek Distillery Inc. and Crosby Molasses Company, owner of Crosby’s Molasses, are about to launch Gingersnap Rum Cream Liquor.
The drink is the distillery’s first foray into the cream liquor market, combining the spice of gingersnap cookies and using Crosby’s fancy molasses to sweeten cream liquor. Crosby’s molasses is also used to make the rum that goes into Gingersnap.
Moonshine Creek CFO Mathieu Collin told Huddle the collaboration with Crosby’s is a partnership that began in early 2020.
“We see the connection of building relationships between local companies. It’s a unique product in a different category for cream-based liqueurs, and using the molasses that Crosby’s produces for our rum elevated our product,” said Collin.
Collin said the Dec.10 launch of 6,000 bottles of the liqueur has already received social media hype and that he expects it to be sold out by Christmas.
“It’s really promising. By Monday, it should be on shelves throughout New Brunswick and Nova Scotia,” he said.
“We wanted to produce more, but we’re still building our supply chain,” said Collin.
“It took us a bit longer than anticipated…but we feel it’s the right timing now.”
Collin said Moonshine Creek makes the rum component of the liquor using the same molasses from the 142-year-old Saint John-based molasses maker, aging in barrels over a year.
To get the flavor profile and shelf life up to snuff, Moonshine Creek picked the brains of NBCC’s Applied Research and Innovation Team.
Moonshine Creek designed the label for the drink’s 750-ml bottles based on the original Crosby’s label, and the most significant supply chain hitch had to do with those bottles.
“The bottles are custom-made with our name embossed on them. We expected those to arrive in June of this year, but they arrived in early October,” he said, adding that the order was more expensive because of the ballooning cost of buying space on shipping containers.
“Shipping container costs went from the $5,000 range, pre-covid, to close to $20,000 U.S. for a container.”
Moonshine Creek plans to survey customers after the holiday season to gauge public interest – and see if there’s interest in selling it year-round.