Canadian Craft Distilling Institute
453, 42nd Ave S.E. T2G1Y3 Calgary, AB, Canada

The US Gov't is declaring Whisky to be gluten free. We have come to associate upset gut / coeliac responses with wheat and its gliadin and glutenin proteins. But, other grains have proteins too (barley has hordein, rye has secalin, oats have avenins). The US Govt argues that proteins do not travel through the distillation process. Therefore, whisky which is made from grain is gluten free. In the 5 day Distilling Workshops I have seen gluten sensitive people get gut upset from drinking Whisky. I am not sure I agree with the US Gov't and its gluten free decision. If you are gluten sensitive, I would like to hear from you if your gut is irritated by Whisky (or Vodka for that matter).

The NOVEMBER Workshop at Two Rivers Distillery in Calgary is on!!! I have changed the format slightly to make it easier for people to attend. The curriculum consists of a 1-day Business of Spirits session, a 2 day Mashing & Malting intensive, a 2-day Fermenting & Distilling intensive and the 1-day Gin Class. Take your pick or take them all. Details are at www.ProhibitionUniversity.com.

The September Workshop at Two Rivers Distillery in Calgary is on!!! The time to learn a new skill is now. If Gov't continues to sink itself into a deep, dark hole of debt I think we all know that taxation levels on booze is going to stealthily creep higher and higher... History tells us that in 1791 the US Gov't (deep in debt) tried to massively tax booze. That lead to people doubling down on their efforts to make product. The net result of all this was the birth of what is today the Kentucky Bourbon industry. History always repeats itself....

Wow! That was a lot of work! I have taken the content from the 5-day distillery courses and re-configured it to make it available on the on-line learning platform called UDEMY.com. Learning online is different. You don't have me in the room with you to answer questions and you don't get to enjoy all those various tastings of different booze to illustrate the learning material and of course there is no hands-on. But, if you are unable to travel due to Covid concerns, take a look at the on-line version.

Have not been able to do any Workshops with the Covid 19 situation. Hopefully by September the economy is back on track and I can begin offering Workshops again. Meantime, I can practice social distancing in my backyard shed as I practice my mashing and fermenting skills. This week I am using up the bits and pieces of left over Purple Wheat grain from my M.Sc. thesis project. This is my first real serious go at using the water in my new location of Mossbank, Saskatchewan. pH... is a tad high and requires acid adjustment. Total Disolved Solids (TDS) of 678 ppm is definitely off the scale, but hopefully the ferments are not affected. Stay tuned and I will let you know how it all turns out. In the meantime, I am also busy creating an on-line version of the Workshop. Learning on-line is definitely not the same as being in a real working distillery for 5 days, but I will be posting the links on my website real soon.

I have just posted that we are now taking registrations for the next Distillery Workshop in Calgary during the period June 8-12. This is ASSUMING that by then the City of Calgary and Province of Alberta have lifted Covid restrictions. Nonetheless, we will still take steps to ensure proper social distancing by keeping the class size small. For details, please see my website at ProhibitionUniversity.com.

In the Distilling Workshops I take a hard stand on equipment from China. There are Chinese equipment makers with strong ties to the "Party". As a result, they have access to the best materials and the most skilled tradespeople. I mane those vendors are show examples of their products. Then there are the rest of the Chinese manufacturers (without "Party" connections) who are seeking to make cheap quality goods and export them to North America to unsuspecting consumers. I state... clearly the questions that you MUST ask before buying anything from China. If the answers to your hard-nosed questions seem vague, it is best to start looking at alternate equipment vendors. Take a look at the image in this post. Does this look normal to you? Towels wrapped around the piping to help prevent alcohol vapors from escaping? I am NOT going to say at what craft distillery this pic was taken and to be respectful, I will NOT reveal the importer who sold this still to the craft distiller in question. Although I must admit, that importer was on the receiving end a of a nasty torrent of expletives from me. Once this coronavirus tragedy gets under control soon, I will get back on track with offering Workshops in Calgary. Whether or not you ultimately start a craft distillery, the material you learn in one of my Workshops will make you a much more informed consumer of spiritous drinks. And, who knows....maybe you will decide to start dabbling in a wee bit of home distilling. To illustrate this latter point, this week I opened a bottle of Bourbon from a batch that I made in 2017 and aged in oak until 2019. The recipe was 70% corn, 15% winter wheat and 15% 2-row barley. WOW! No use buying Bourbon at the store anymore. Mine is plenty delicious. A little knowledge can be dangerous....