There was a time in the County of Red Deer that the county would use rye grain for erosion control on the Range Road near the farm where Ian Scott grew up (Range Road 13). Ian’s Dad who was born in the dirty thirties grew up learning not let anything go to waste so he harvested the grain that fall. Ian, being a bit of a curious young man was inspired to learn how to put that rye grain to good use and he began to research distilling with the aim to build his own still. Although the still was never built, an idea had been planted.
Some time later, Ian and his wife, Marnie visited a distillery in B.C. and the idea was rekindled. At about the same time Alberta changed the law which paved the way to allow small micro-distillery start-ups. Ian had already had researched the process, and his work in the Alberta Oil Field gave him the confidence that he could operate the similar distilling equipment and so he and his wife Marnie created the Stone Heart Distillery (located in the town of Innisfail, Alberta). The distillery is a true grains to glass operation, Ian and Marnie mill, mash, ferment and distill their own grain, and they turned to their natural surroundings, adding pure Rocky Mountain valley water to their distillate to bring it to bottling proof. This is truly a true family run operation, from grain to glass.
Ian Scott sent me two bottle of his vodka, one from batch 17, and one from batch 18 made with a different variety of wheat. He asked me to sample each of them and send him back some feedback.
When I tasted the Stone Heart Vodkas for the first time, I conducted a side by side tasting with several other locally produced craft vodkas. From that line-up, I chose the two which I felt were the best spirits and decided to write full reviews for them.
Here is link to the full review for Stone Heart Vodka (from Batch 17)
Review: Stone Heart Vodka
Please enjoy my review which includes a nice recipe to gear us up for summertime, the Vodka Darby.
Chimo!
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