MONTREAL – Walking through his industrial building in Montreal’s Sud-Ouest district, Paul Cirka oozes knowledge about alcohol and spirits.
Although he comes from a high-tech background, Cirka sounds like he’s spent his whole life focused on distilling alcohol – after all, that’s all he’s focused on for the last five years.
“I have always been interested in the spirit market,” said Cirka.
“Was it a romantic dream? Maybe.”
Along with two partners, Cirka started up Cirka Distilleries last year.
It took nine months for his stills and equipment to get designed and installed before he could start the recipe-testing process.
Cirka wants to be the first grain-to-bottle distiller in Quebec.
He uses Quebec corn for his vodka base and barley and other grains for his Scotch, which will only be ready in three years.
He has a room full of dozens of botanicals, from Spanish and Florida dried oranges, to Juniper berries from Macedonia.
As much as possible, he tries to source his ingredients from Quebec producers.
He’s spent countless hours testing and re-testing his recipes.
Get breaking National news
“We work with foragers. We drove for six hours to meet a botanist who literally lives in the forest who goes gathering plants and stuff,” Cirka said.
There are other Quebec spirits available on shelves already, but they are not quite homegrown.
The producers are buying bulk spirits from other provinces and then essentially just bottling them here.
“A lot of vodkas here are taken from Ontario,” Cirka told Global News.
“They are watered down with Quebec water and they are bottled here and they call them from Quebec but technically they are not really Quebec.”
Cirka calls his operation Quebec’s first true micro-distillery, but he’s entering a tough market marred by stringent Quebec liquor laws.
He can only sell through the Société des Alcools du Québec (SAQ), and not directly from the distillery.
That’s how micro-distilleries in the United States generate about 40 per cent of their revenues.
“Here, there is no category for micro-distillers,” he explained.
“You are an industrial producer. It’s akin to saying I’m a goat cheese maker in Charlevoix and I am in the same category as Kraft.”
While the government is overhauling its liquor laws for wine and beer, it isn’t touching the spirits market.
Wine writer Yves Mailloux said it’s tough for micro-distillers to exist in Quebec.
“You have to be crazy to start a business where you will have very little money and you can sell it mostly to your domestic market,” said Mailloux.
Cirka knows it won’t be easy establishing himself as a premium spirit maker, but he’s hoping his product will sell itself.
He’s hoping for an SAQ permit by the time his gins and vodkas are ready by the spring.
His Scotch will be ready in another three years.
Comments