The Guelph, Ont., entrepreneur dips into the past to resurrect another family business, Spring Mill Distillery
John Sleeman, owner of the new Spring Mill Distillery in Guelph, Ont., poses for a portrait between copper pot stills imported from Scotland.Step inside the 184-year-old stone building that houses Spring Mill Distillery in Guelph, Ont. and it quickly becomes apparent that this is not your run-of-the-mill new craft-spirits venture.
Archive records revealed that Sleeman’s great-great-grandfather – who had founded a brewery that eventually lost its licence in 1933 for cross-border smuggling – had also built a whisky distillery called Spring Mill in St. Catharines, Ont., 100 kilometres to the southeast of Guelph. “It’s amazing,” Sleeman says. “It’s almost like destiny.”
This time around, with fewer family details to go by, Sleeman looked to other long-established distilleries for guidance on how to set up shop. In addition to the Scottish stills made by Forsyths, he also equipped Spring Mill with two custom fermenters made of wood rather than the modern stainless steel. Known as washbacks, the giant vats are common to Scottish single malt and are traditionally made from staves of Douglas fir sourced from either Oregon or Washington.
Spring Mill’s deep-pocket ambitions notwithstanding, it enters an increasingly populated market. Little more than a dozen years ago, Canada’s spirits industry was virtually the sole domain of a handful of big players churning out such familiar brands as Wiser’s, Crown Royal and Canadian Club.
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