Crosscut Distillery in Greater Sudbury has won seven medals at an annual national spirit competition. The distillery submitted seven nominations to Canada’s Artisan Spirit Competition, and won three gold, three silver and one bronze medal. The distillery has been around for five years, and distills all of its spirits in house. “It’s quite an honour to get this award,” said Corissa Blaseg, general manager at Crosscut Distillery. Crosscut has entered the competition and won in the past, but Blaseg says they were feeling confident this year. “This year we were really feeling confident about our lineup, so we submitted seven spirits this year,” she said. Alex Hamer, founder of Artisan Distillers Canada, says samples of the products are shipped to industry professionals across the country for a blind taste test. They receive some basic information about the product and they have three months to rate their samples. Scoring criteria and written feedback goes back to Hamer to determine which product has won. Hamer says it’s remarkable that Crosscut picked up seven awards with seven entries. “There’s plenty of instances when a distillery might enter that many and they might see six or five, so quite frankly, it’s a fantastic result,” he says. Hamer says awards like this shine a spotlight on small distilleries that might have trouble competing with larger, commercial distilleries offering discounted prices. He says it can also make a difference if a consumer is trying to decide between a commercial and a local distillery. “Consumers will look at this and go, well if someone said this is good, and if they’re trying to make that decision to spend 40 or 50 dollars on a bottle of spirits, this might give them more confidence,” he said. “That industry professionals have taken a look at it and said this had quality.” Crosscut Distillery told CTV News they have a number of new products they’re planning to bring to market in the future. “It just goes to show that hard work pays off,” Blaseg said. To stay up to date with the distillery’s news and events, follow their Facebook page.
