{"id":2008,"date":"2014-06-26T16:45:32","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T23:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/?p=2008"},"modified":"2014-07-04T09:45:31","modified_gmt":"2014-07-04T16:45:31","slug":"matters-alcohol-markets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/matters-alcohol-markets\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Matters – Alcohol Sales at Farmers’ Markets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Farmers\u2019 markets are now in full swing across BC<\/strong><\/em>, with more and more crops coming into their harvest seasons, nugget potatoes, snap peas, early garlic, and\u2026wine? Yes, very soon you will start seeing local wine, beer, mead and spirit producers with their own booths at BC farmers markets.<\/p>\n

\"Serving

Serving SeaCider<\/p><\/div>\n

In a bid to update<\/strong><\/em> many of our archaic liquor laws, the provincial government is now allowing<\/a> the sale of beer, wine, cider and spirits at farmers\u2019 markets across BC. And because we are talking farmers\u2019 markets, the organizers at many farmers\u2019 markets will apply the same standards as they do to their other vendors, in that they will focus on local producers of these beverages.\u00a0I\u2019ve seen wines and spirits for sale at farmers\u2019 markets in Oregon and all over Europe. You can get a little taste of what the producers are selling, and it all seems to take place in a quite civilized manner. After all, people are not buying drinks, they are just getting little sips to try.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course there are some regulations<\/strong><\/em>. I\u00a0spoke with Elizabeth Quinn, the executive director of the BC Farmers\u2019 Market Association<\/a>, and she\u2019s just sent the regulations out to her member markets. She says many of the regulations came about with the association\u2019s direct consultation with the provincial government. Any liquor vendor at a market will have to have their \u2018Serving It Right\u2019 certificate, and they also must have an existing storefront where people can already buy their products. Some markets have let her know they are not interested in having the beverage producers there, while others are wholeheartedly embracing it. She says how each farmers\u2019 market decides to integrate the producers will be up to the individual market, since they all have their own unique culture, and some municipal bylaws may have to be amended if they don\u2019t already allow liquor sales to take place at public venues like the markets.<\/p>\n

I’ve received a variety of reactions<\/strong> <\/em>from some of the beverage producers I know on the Island. \u00a0Stephen Schacte in Duncan has been planning and building his Ampersand distillery for the past three and a half years and he\u2019s just about ready to start producing gin and some specialty liquors like a tayberry-infused vodka made from berries at Sol Farm<\/a>, which he and his wife Ramona own. They have already been selling their fruits and vegetables at the market, so now he\u2019s really looking forward to being able to greet their regular customers and new ones at the market with his products. I\u2019m going to go out and visit his distillery for a future column because he tells me the still he\u2019s building is unlike any other.<\/p>\n

\"Peter

Peter Kimmerly of Island Spirits Distillery<\/p><\/div>\n

But up at Hornby Island,<\/strong><\/em> Peter Kimmerly from Island Spirits Distillery<\/a> (the folks that make pHrog gin and vodka) says he\u2019s not interested in doing farmers\u2019 markets, especially off-island, because he has more than enough people coming right to his door these days, and a lot of his profit can be eaten up by just taking the ferry to the mainland.<\/p>\n

One of the larger producers near me in Cobble Hill<\/strong> <\/em>is Merridale Cidery<\/a>, where co-owner Rick Pipes helped lead the way in getting liquor laws friendlier to the artisan distilling industry. Rick\u2019s wife Janet Docherty says she thinks the idea of being able to promote your craft at local markets is great; she\u2019ll definitely look into it, likely won\u2019t bother sampling their ciders there, but they would like to get people tasting and more familiar with their distilled products such as their apple and pear brandies. And I got the same reaction from Linda Holford at Rocky Creek Winery<\/a> and Marilyn Schulze at the Venturi-Schulze Vineyards<\/a>. Linda already has her application in to the Duncan Farmers\u2019 Market so I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if Rocky Creek is one of the first producers will we see at a market here on Vancouver Island.<\/p>\n

\"Spirits

Spirits from Merridale Estate Cidery<\/p><\/div>\n

Potential downsides to this?<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0As Marilyn Schulze said to me today, the devil is in the details. Anything new to established set-ups or a cultural change may take a little while to settle out. Each market will have to determine how they will deal with the new vendors coming in. Steve Schacte was concerned all the producers may get lumped into one area, where he would rather just add on to his established table for his farm. Elizabeth Quinn told me the Whistler Farmers\u2019 market has already decided to limit their vendors to one craft brewery, one distillery and one winery each week, and they will rotate among the different producers who want to come in so no one gets an exclusive run at the market. So I just hope that the markets themselves don\u2019t add on too many unnecessary or cumbersome regulations that would end up driving the artisans away instead of encouraging them, because I think this has the potential to be a great way to encourage more local spirit production in this province.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Farmers\u2019 markets are now in full swing across BC, with more and more crops coming into their harvest seasons, nugget potatoes, snap peas, early garlic, and\u2026wine? Yes, very soon you will start seeing local wine, beer, mead and spirit producers … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[33,44,34,35,446,524,32],"class_list":["post-2008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-matters","tag-all-points-west","tag-artisan-foods","tag-cbc-radio","tag-don-genova","tag-farmers-markets-spirits-liquor","tag-food-matters","tag-sustainable-eating"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2008"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2016,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008\/revisions\/2016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dongenova.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}