Eatdrink #81 January_February 2020

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eatdrink
Profiles of Excellence
A Proudly Canadian Spirit
Dairy Distillery
Innovation Using Ontario Milk
A truly remarkable spirit is
the product of the character
of its ingredients, the
mastery of its making and
the depth of its story.
Environmental & Social Benefits
All spirits are made by fermenting sugar. Dairy Distillery uses a sugar
rarely used to make spirits: milk sugar. Milk sugar, or lactose, is a natural,
healthy sugar. It was first fermented to make alcohol by the Mongols over
a thousand years ago. While milk sugar produces a cleaner, smoother,
gluten-free spirit, it never became popular with distillers due to its high
cost and production challenges.
Milk from 3,500 Ontario dairy farms is sent to large processors where
the cream is removed to make butter and the proteins concentrated to
make ultrafiltered milk used by cheese and yogurt makers. When making
ultrafiltered milk, a sugar rich liquid called milk permeate is produced.
Most milk permeate is dumped, creating a
strain on the environment and a disposal cost
for dairy farmers.
In this “waste,” Dairy Distillery Founder &
CEO Omid McDonald saw an opportunity to
make world-class spirits with the potential
to support hard working local farmers and
the environment. In collaboration with the
University of Ottawa, a process to convert
milk permeate into an unbelievably smooth
spirit has been perfected. Thanks to this
process, anything that Dairy Distillery
doesn’t bottle can be safely put back into
the environment. And buying milk permeate
helps Ontario dairy farmers.