Photo courtesy The Crabbie Goat Facebook

By Erika Rolling

Made in Alberta Awards

Valleyview’s The Crabbie Goat Moonshine finalist for Made in Alberta Readers’ Choice Awards

May 8, 2023 | 12:48 PM

A Peace country favourite in many people’s cupboards and mason jars has been selected as a finalist in the Made in Alberta Readers’ Choice Awards.

Moonshine from The Crabbie Goat Distillery in Valleyview has been in people’s red solo cups since 2019 and was voted Consumers Choice for Alberta’s Best Distillery in 2022 at both the Alberta Food and Beverage Expo’s.

Cheryl and Jamie Gordon run the business just outside of the town on an acreage, where the distillery, orchard, goats, and tasting room sit.

Cheryl says after her husband Jamie had an aortic aneurysm in 2015, they decided to make use of the land they have and live off of it.

“…and he wanted mini goats. As part of his healing process I guess, so we went and bought these little furballs that jump around everywhere and I thought, now is time to do our orchard.”

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Cheryl had dreamed of having an orchard since their land had wild saskatoons and raspberries but never knew how to make money from it.

Both the couple’s grandparents had made various types of liquor from crab apples and other things, including Jamie’s grandpas making moonshine in the garage, and The Crabbie Goat was born.

They built the first stand-alone distillery building, and farm distillery in Alberta.

Their first product was a gin, which was sent to the Canadian Spirit Awards, winning them a National Gold.

“We didn’t expect we’d win anything, we just thought we’d get the judges tasting notes and kinda go from there.”

“We were pretty excited… and we said well, I guess we are in the right business!”

Some of their other products have also won awards; Gold Medal in the 2021 Alberta Beverage Awards for the Root Beer and Orange Creamsicle Moonshine and a medal for their original moonshine – Nana’s Apple Pie Moonshine.

“It’s a lot of long days and a lot of hard work but we always want to deliver our best… it’s worth it when we get people writing how they love our stuff and looking for it everywhere and all the different recipes they make with it,” She says the support has been overwhelmingly positive since the start.

Cheryl says The Crabbie Goat products can be found in over 170 liquor stores in the province with 17 different moonshine flavours.

“It’s really allowed me to be creative and that’s my wheelhouse, I love to invent new products.”

She says they will be launching hard sodas in the next couple of months, for even more new flavours to be concocted.

_{The winner of the Made in Alberta Readers’ Choice Awards will win $5,000 and be featured in the Made in Alberta Awards coverage in Avenue‘s September/October 2023 print issue.}