Maritime Spirits Showcases The Best Craft Alcohol In The Maritimes
FREDERICTON— Any time a new brewery opens up in New Brunswick, Shauna Chase and Alex Vietingoff make a point to drive and check it out for themselves. Last summer, they brought along a camera crew.
Maritime Spirits is a TV series sponsored by Bell TV1, where the couple profiles ten craft alcohol producers in Atlantic Canada. This is their follow-up series to their documentary Beerocracy, which focuses exclusively on breweries in the Maritimes.
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“It’s a really cool industry if you’re into supporting local or drinking craft beer, wine or spirits,” said Vietingoff. “Everyone’s doing something different, there are still new producers and breweries popping up all the time.”
“A lot of them are weaving either their local history or culture or local ingredients or odd bits of folklore into the product,” said Vietingoff.
Before the show, they were familiar with the process of making beer, but the work behind hard alcohol distilling and winemaking was new to them.
“Another great thing we’ve come to learn over the years is that they give you a bunch of free samples,” said Vietingoff.
For their first season, they interview Fredericton brewers like Trailway Brewing, which they live next door to, and Red Rover, which is owned by their friend.
“We get to tell these stories of people that we know or businesses that we think are really cool and it was at no cost to those businesses,” said Vietingoff.
Their first episode was on Moonshine Creek Distillery, which makes a variety of liquors like moonshine and barrel-aged whiskey. They have big hopes for one spirit called Canadiana.
“[You know] how Scotland has scotch and France has champagne, but they are trying to do a Canadian version of that using just maple syrup to make the spirit, it’s called Canadiana,” said Vietingoff.
When filming Beerocracy, they learned microbreweries often hire more staff than larger breweries because they can’t afford to have a machine that does everything for them. Small businesses like them are often more sustainable than larger corporations too.
“It makes a lot of jobs,” said Vietingoff. “A lot of them are using local ingredients from farms around the Maritimes or Canada to get their hops and grains.”
Anyone who is looking to do a road trip of their own can check out their Beerocracy map or Maritime Spirits Facebook group. A recent addition to the map is Saint Andrews Brewing Company, sold at the Red Herring Pub.
“We haven’t done an episode on them but that was another one we were hoping to cover if we get a season two,” said Chase.
The show was released on June 15th for Bell subscribers and after July 15th, it will be available to purchase on other platforms. They are hoping to get renewed for season two since the couple has many other places they want to show off in the Maritimes.
“We have plenty of ideas,” said Chase. “People using local ingredients, like we wanted to do Sunset Heights Meadery where they work with bees and beekeep.”
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Rachel Smith is a summer intern for Huddle. Send her story suggestions: [email protected].