Grande Prairie distillery’s rum recognized with national bronze medal

Mar 10, 2021 | 2:10 PM

A Grande Prairie distillery has been recognized with a national award.

Latitude 55’s Kakwa Rum was awarded a bronze medal in the Traditional Rum category at the 2021 Canadian Artisan Spirit Competition this past February.

The national competition is put on by the Artisan Distillers of Canada and allows for distillers across the country to submit their best drink to a panel of Canada’s best judges.

Nick Kebalo, the President of Latitude 55 says having their rum being recognized nationally is a big honour.

“We were the only rum in Alberta that received any awards, so we are really excited and proud of that,” said Kebalo. “My background is rum and whisky, so I’m really encouraged by the result. Hopefully when we send it again next year, we can improve on those results.”

Kebalo tells EverythingGP they had been working on this rum for a while.

“The rum is distilled right through our batch still that we have. I do a two-step process for a portion of it and a one-step process for another portion of it. I double the distillation for one portion of it and single the distillation for another,” said Kebalo.

“I put those in different barrels, wait a year that is required by law to be able to call it a rum. We did a lot of this work in early 2019 and released the rum in July 2020.”

He adds the rum is aged in once-used bourbon barrels, which he says gives it a nice, complex flavour.

by Shane Clausing