SAINT JOHN & WATERVILLE, NB – Moosehead Breweries and Moonshine Creek Distillery have announced details of a new collaboration inspired by the work that the two producers have been doing together to produce hand sanitizer needed for the fight against COVID-19.
Community Spirit is a “rye lager virgin oak barrel aged whisky” that has the following back story:
As COVID-19 started to make its way into Canada in mid-March, Moonshine Creek wanted to support efforts to keep the community safe by producing hand sanitizer – but the family-run small business didn’t have the ingredients required to produce significant quantities. Moosehead had the same goal, but lacked product with the high alcohol content required to make hand sanitizer. And so the companies came together and throughout the early weeks of the pandemic, Moosehead shipped a total of 24,000 litres of beer to the distillery to be used in the production of sanitizer.
Once the sanitizer production was complete, the companies saw an opportunity for further collaboration. They decided to craft a unique whisky by blending the workable materials, known as heads and tails, of the distilled Moosehead Lager into the second distillation run of a rye spirit, which was then blended with maple tree water.
While Community Spirit will be aging in barrels for another three years before being bottled and distributed, 500 certificates are on sale now for $100 each via the Moonshine Creek website, and can be purchased from anywhere in Canada to be exchanged for a 750 ml bottle of the whisky when it’s released in June 2023.
All proceeds from sales of the certificates – a total of $50,000, assuming all are sold – will be donated to New Brunswick Food Banks.
For more details, see the Moonshine Creek website.
Source & Photo: Moosehead Breweries press release