Farm to bottle: Malden farmer makes vodka from small potatoes

Devon Strang and his family have adopted a new motto for their farm in Malden: when life gives you potatoes too small to sell, make vodka.

The family opened Blue Roof Distillers this month, calling it the first farm-to-bottle micro-distillery in Atlantic Canada.

The mystique in the industry about making alcohol from potatoes is what intrigued him, Strang said.

"We thought, 'Well, we could make a potato vodka here,' and started dabbling into how we could do that," he said.

"My brain just kind of took off from there and we never really looked back."

Strang has since made the distillery a whole new aspect of the family's farm, about 70 kilometres east of Moncton. The family offers tours and samples to those who come by and even sells T-shirts.

He's also hired a distiller and hopes to hire more people, a bonus for the rural community and province, he said.

The operation's success, however, required steep learning curves.

"I decided somewhere in the process that I was able to mash potatoes and I was able to ferment potatoes, but I wasn't really sure of the chemistry that was going on with what I was doing," Strang said.

'A true authentic process'

Strang said people who visit or hear about the distillery are blown away and always ask if he's a chemist.

When he got the idea, Strang travelled to the United States, visiting places like Idaho to try different vodka products. He also took a couple of distilling courses.

Strang then hired a chemist from the Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick in Edmundston to come down and help. Some government funding also helped.

"We went from there, had a chemist analyze our cooking and mashing methods, kind of help us along with our recipe development," he said.

"And what we ended up with was a product that was scientifically sound in methods," he said. "And ultra-premium, of course, because of the way we did things."

Strange said the family farm has been in experiment mode for nearly two years.

While most people will simply send their potatoes away to be dehydrated and made into flakes, the Strang family used their own whole potatoes, skin and all.

He said the complete control of production is what makes this operation different from other distilleries.

"I plant my product, I watch it grow, I harvest the product, we then sort our product on our packing line, and then of course we take it into the distillery and we mash it, ferment it, and then distill it," he said.

"We also filter it and bottle it and label it here. We have a true authentic process from beginning to end that you're not going to see anywhere else."

Double duty

As for the name of the distillery itself, it simply comes from the colour of the Strang family's warehouse roofs.

"When you're driving down the highway and you see all the blue roofs, it kind of resonates in your brain."

What we ended up with was a product that was scientifically sound in methods and ultra-premium, of course, because of the way we did things.- Devon Strang, Blue Roof Distillers

The hardest part, Strang said, has been trying to run a farm and a distillery at the same time.

But he put in two months of 18-hour days, the doors are open and the company asked for an NB Liquor listing.

The end result of it all, Strang said, is a vodka with a sweet finish and no after-sting or burn.

"I think it's the smoothest vodka you'll ever taste if you try it, and I've been getting nothing but positive feedback from people that are trying it."