Secret Barrel Distillery

During his university years, Adam MacDonald spent his summers working at his uncle’s craft brewery in Ottawa. He finished school and moved to Calgary to take an accounting job, but working in the brewing industry had sparked something inside him. “I always had this entrepreneurial itch and I really wanted to do something in the liquor industry,” says Adam. “I saw there were so many craft breweries doing creative things. But I thought Calgary needed help in the craft spirits industry. To keep in the same industry I thought that Secret Barrel Distillery would be a good fit for the city.”

Secret Barrel Distillery chose rum as its first spirit to launch the brand in 2016. It sources its sugar cane from Guyana, a country in South America, and it is aged for one year. It is then charcoaled filtered to give it a clear colour. “Rum’s origins are in the Caribbean. It’s deeply related to the development of North America. We wanted to have this Canadian feel to it,” says Adam. “We thought that it’s still up and coming and people are starting to discover it’s not just the cheaper version you mix with coke.”