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T
he Glenora Inn & Distillery started
with a dream. Bruce Jardine, a local businessman not afraid to think
outside the box, envisioned the concept of
a whisky distillery in Cape Breton, Nova
Scotia. He was attached to the culture left
behind centuries ago by the region’s Scottish settlers, and he wanted to make sure he
preserved and honoured that culture with a
unique and flavourful product. That dream
has since become a reality, and Glenora has
made history on the back of it.
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“We are North America’s first single
malt whisky distillery, and Canada’s only
single malt whisky,” says Bob Scott, Executive Partner at Glenora. While the North
American market has expanded and other
single malts have been introduced, Glenora’s
product will forever be the first, which gives
them an edge.
Glenora Distillery started production
in 1990, but its story dates back much further, all the way to when Cape Breton was
first settled in the early 1800s. At that time,
Scottish landlords were more interested in
using property to raise sheep for wool than
they were in leasing it to farmers. Consequently, many of those farmers headed across
the ocean and landed in Nova Scotia. From
there, some of the settlers moved northeast
and saw the highlands, which reminded
them of home. Those people settled in the
hills of Glenville in 1820, bringing the culture of their homeland with them.
“What happened is that Bruce Jardine
had this dream of preserving the heritage
Glenora Inn & Distillery | 3
Scottish landlords were more interested in
using property to raise sheep for wool than
they were in leasing it to farmers. Consequently, many of those farmers headed across
the ocean and landed in Nova Scotia. From
there, some of the settlers moved northeast
and saw the highlands, which reminded
them of home. Those people settled in the
hills of Glenville in 1820, bringing the culture of their homeland with them.
“What happened is that Bruce Jardine
had this dream of preserving the heritage
and culture of the Scottish settlers,” recounts
Scott. “So he and group of businessmen went
to Scotland to discuss a single malt whiskey
distillery with some of the folks there. Those
meetings turned out very well, and they purchased Scottish copper pot stills, a mash tun,
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and three wooden washbacks – the sorts of
things that are part of the production process.”
When deciding where to place the
distillery, Jardine and his partners had over
a dozen options. They eventually settled on
Glenville because of its history, as well as its
proximity to MacLellan’s Brook, a stream of
water that comes from the highlands above
the distillery and flows right through the
property. “From what we understand, it’s
one of the purest, cleanest waters in North
America,” Scott says. Glenora owns 600 acres
of land around the property so as to best protect MacLellan’s and their other water supplies.
During the first few years, Glenora
struggled with cash flow. In 1994, however,
Scott’s group – led by Bedford businessman
Lauchie MacLean – took over the operation
and turned it around. Scott reports that the
passion MacLean had for the business and its
product was similar to Jardine’s. “That passion ran over into the employees and into
the whiskey making process,” Scott says.
“Lauchie was very adamant in making sure
we produced a world class single malt.”
Glenora’s product is known as a single
malt whisky because alcohol can only be
called Scotch if it is produced in Scotland.
That difference, however, did not stop the
Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) from trying to prevent Glenora from using the name
Glen Breton Rare for their product, claiming it would mislead the public into thinking
it was Scotch whisky. Glenora’s lawyer David
A. Copp, however, successfully won the ensuing legal battle – an impressive achievement considering the size and influence of
the SWA.
In the midst of that battle, Glenora
launched their first product into the market. “It was a huge success,” Scott says. “We
sold over 3,000 cases of our production into
the marketplace in less than five months. So
there started to be demand for our rare single
malt.”
That impressive demand was validated
by the success Glenora achieved in a number
of different contests throughout the year. A
notable example of that success occurred in
2007, when Glen Breton Whiskey was rated
in the Top 50 Spirits in the World by Wine
Enthusiast Magazine, an acclaimed
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New York publication. That designation
stirred a lot of interest both nationally and
internationally, and led the way for Glenora
to start selling their product across Canada,
the United States, Europe and most recently
Asia – a market they are keen to expand further into.
Another significant example of the
company’s awards success is the international awards they have won for Glen Breton Ice,
the world’s first single malt whisky aged in
ice wine barrels. At the San Francisco World
Spirits Competition, for instance, that innovative product took home a Silver Medal.
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Unfortunately, Jardine himself passed
away in 1999, just before the product launch
in 2000. “I never met him, but I would have
liked him,” Scott says. “He was a visionary.
He would have been very proud, as we are,
of the dream we helped he and his family realise.”
A HIDDEN GEM
Though enormously successful, Glenora
remains a small company with roughly 35
employees. In addition to the distillery side
of the business, they also have a hospitality
component – the Glenora Inn. The Inn in-
cludes nine rooms, six chalets, as well as a
pub and dining room. The dining room is
an acclaimed one, having been highly rated
in Where to Eat in Canada, the bestselling
independent guide to Canadian restaurants
from coast to coast. “We’re very proud of
that part of our operation as well,” says Scott.
As an extension of their distillery business, Glenora also conducts tours. “We open
our doors for visitors from Mid-May till the
last week of October,” Scott says. “While
there, folks have an opportunity to buy rare
products at our gift shop that are not sold
into the marketplace in volumes.” The tour
component of their business is very successful, with Glenora attracting over 10,000 visitors a year. “There’s a huge interest in that
market,” Scott says.
In addition, Glenora offers private
labelling for companies and individual customers, a practice they are interested in expanding further in the future. “We’re always
looking for unique packaging and ideas as to
how to further promote our product line,”
Scott explains. Moving forward, he says Glenora will continue to look for new opportunities in packaging as well as product development. One of the potential products they
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are investigating at the moment, for instance,
is a whisky flavoured lacquer.
The most important part of the Glenora business model, however, is the sense
of culture they seek to preserve and project.
When Jardine founded the company over
twenty years ago, some of the cultural aspects he was most excited about showcasing
were things like the Gaelich language, and
fiddle music. The Glenora of today has held
true to those ideals, and even expanded on
them. During tour season, for example, they
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have daily kitchen parties. “People come and
they can relax, enjoy a glass of Glen Breton,
listen to the fiddle players and piano players,
and really catch that Scottish feeling,” Scott
says.
At Glenora Inn & Distillery they are
not just selling whisky, they are selling an
experience. “Visitors that come to Glenora
leave with this amazing memory,” Scott says.
“We’re in Glenville, in a glen, and the view is
unbelievable. It’s such a safe, beautiful, quiet
experience.” That quality is what attracts so
many people to the company, and to their
distillery itself. According to Scott, their
visitors cannot help but be swept up in the
serene and storied atmosphere. “If you came
here, you would feel the aura of that distillery – it has that with it,” he says. “When you
see it, you can’t believe it. That’s rare. It’s rare
that people in this day and age can find such
a magnificent property. It’s like a hidden
gem.”
The Glenora property, in addition to
being beautiful, is also what accounts for
the unique flavour of their product. Glenora Distillery is located in an apple orchard
area amongst a natural stand of maple trees,
which lends an apple taste to their single
malt whiskey. “Our whiskey has what we call
a burst of flavour development on the finish,”
Scott explains. “It’s unbelievable, the taste
just lingers. You can almost taste a touch of
maple and butterscotch and honey in our
product, and people recognise that and they
get all excited when they touch our whiskey
compared to other single malts.” 5
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www.glenoradistillery.com