From rock to glass: Experiencing local flavour at The Newfoundland Distillery
Newfoundland is a land rich in botanicals and delicious ingredients—all of which you can discover and enjoy at The Newfoundland Distillery Company
If only the Vikings who first visited Newfoundland for winemaking ingredients had known that the land was rich in other botanicals and delicious ingredients! There might still be plenty of Leifs and Eriks wandering around, but centuries ago, they packed their longships and set sail.
It took another ten centuries for an artist named Peter Wilkins and Cordon Bleu-trained chef William Carter to showcase Newfoundland’s bounty at The Newfoundland Distillery Company through a selection of spirits that tell a story as authentic as its local flavours.
When Wilkins and Carter opened their Clarke Beach distillery on the shores of Conception Bay, they conceived a Scandinavian spirit known as Aquavit. They weren’t aiming to honour the province’s Viking history. Instead, they sought to craft a whisky-like beverage by distilling local barley and infusing it with Newfoundland peat, juniper, and savoury. This was Newfoundland's first legally distilled spirit made entirely from ingredients grown in the province.
Carter knows how to tease flavours from simple ingredients, capturing the province's bold flavours and delivering them to the palate with refinement. For example, they use Grand Banks seaweed, juniper, and savoury to make their award-winning Seaweed Gin. They replace the seaweed with cloudberry (known as bakeapple to locals) for their Cloudberry Gin. In Newfoundland, every grandmother has a cloudberry jam recipe. According to Wilkins, artists and chefs enjoy a drink, so instead of jam, they channelled their inner grandma by preserving the cloudberries in a barley-based spirit.
Experiencing Canada host Nathan Coleman (right) with Peter Wilkins, co-founder of Newfoundland Distillery Company, making a Cloudberry Gin Cocktail (The Weather Network)
Newfoundland is a rum province, and the distillery makes a trio, including their highly acclaimed and award-winning Gunpowder & Rose Rum. Why gunpowder and rose? In the 1600s, when the British navy provided sailors with a rum ration, they would mix a sample with gunpowder before igniting it. Good rum flared. The creative minds at the distillery spice the rum with mock gunpowder made from local sea salt, kelp, and charred birch, along with Newfoundland rose, to balance the rum’s complex profile.
On November 30, 2023, Newfoundland became a legal whisky-making province, joining the rest of the country. That’s when the Newfoundland Distillery Company launched the first modern-age Newfoundland Whisky, showcasing a graceful yet rugged flavour profile reminiscent of the province’s shores.
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