We were lucky to catch up with Faye Warrington recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Faye, thanks for joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

Picking the name for your business is a really fun experience because the sky is the limit! We chose Skunkworks Distillery because at our roots we are geeky science people. The term ‘Skunk Works” has been used for decades by many companies to refer to their specialty teams working on innovative projects driven by science and engineering. The goal of our team at Skunkworks Distillery is to engineer fantastic tasting moonshine!

Faye, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Skunkworks Distillery is the creation of two friends turned business partners, Faye Warrington and Marty Lastiwka…and we make high quality Moonshine! Both of our families have ‘dabbled’ in moonshine making. We have a huge appreciation for the high quality smooth shine that was saved for special occasions like weddings, but couldn’t find that quality of moonshine on the liquor store shelves. The thought of making available a high quality product like this for people to try and enjoy really excites us. Many Canadians do not have a lot of experience with moonshine and are often scared that it will ‘make them go blind’ if they try it. One of the most rewarding moments is when they do muster up the courage to try it, they are always surprised at how smooth it is. It makes me smile every time because they are so proud of themselves that they have tried and discovered something new.

We are located in Calgary, Alberta and are one of the smallest distilleries in Alberta and likely in Canada. Everything we bottle comes out of our 200 litre still (53 gallon). We make all our spirits out of processed sugar beets from southern provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. In the southern US corn is traditionally used to make moonshine and the flavour is quite different from our spirit. Ours is a white spirit, closes cousin is vodka, but it’s more interesting on the palette with a hint of sweetness and a smooth finish. Some folks relate it to a nice tequila, others get a hint of coconut from it, but palettes are interesting and not everyone tastes it the same. The most important part is that it’s smooth and not bitey, we only bottle spirits that we will happily drinking straight, true fact! With it being a sugar spirit no grains are used so it is guaranteed to be gluten free, which, is great for our friends and family who have gluten intolerance and celiac disease.

Through the pandemic people were drinking on their driveways and drinking canned drinks. We decided to can some of our popular cocktails about 5 years ahead of business plan. All our canned cocktail sodas are great but the recently released Moonshine Mule has hit it out of the park. Lots of fresh ginger, ginger syrup we make in-house, ginger beer, and lime juice blend to make our version of a Moscow Mule. It’s a challenge to keep it in stock but a fun challenge to have!

If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?

Having a brick and mortar is expensive, it’s our biggest monthly cost. So, we’ve broken our building up into three parts and expect each part to be able to pay for itself. The front of house is the tasting room. We have fantastic bartenders who make amazing cocktails and cocktail flights. We host bands on Friday nights in the tasting room. We encourage them to play original music so there’s a fun and eclectic crowd that stops in. Once a month we have a Songwriters’ Circle where three musicians chat about music and play their original songs, it’s always soothing for my soul. The bands perform in front of the copper still as their backdrop, which helps to make it feel like a unique spot to play in.

The back of house is our production area/warehouse. This is where we make all our products and sell it wholesale from the warehouse. We make four main spirits ranging 40% – 55% abv spirits ( 80 – 110 proof), vermouth, canned cocktails, and kegs of our cocktails. There is always a new recipe steeping back there which is pure creative fun!

The third area is a music recording studio. We have a main jam room with a full drum kit and PA system, so it’s plug and play, there is an isolation room, and a sound engineer room (and a sound engineer if you’re looking to record your new release!). This is a great music space, and we have regulars that rent it out. The bands on Friday night complement the music studio and we often get new studio bookings from the Friday night band nights.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

We had our grand opening in November 2019 and with the pandemic hitting in March 2020 we had to do a quick pivot. We could no longer try to sell our spirits to restaurants and bars because they were closed. Liquor stores were a challenge to sell craft to because the managers were not accepting meetings. We ended up producing hand sanitizer, which was the need of the moment. We didn’t sell the hand sanitizer; we gave it away because it felt wrong to sell something that the world believed was essential to maintain health. We gave it away and in return the community bought our spirits to support us, the ultimate support on both sides. We were so grateful, and it seems so were they.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.skunkworksdistillery.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skunkworksdistillery/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skunkworksyyc/
• Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/SkunkworksDistillery
• Twitter: @Skunkworksyyc

Image Credits
All images owned by Skunkworks Distillery