b'Ken Beattie (right) watches potatoes come off the harvester at the Beattie family farm in Alliston, Ont. PHOTO: LIZ BEATTIE, BEATTIE DISTILLERS.STARTING POINT We thought, Oh well, you know what? It wasnt meant to be. And I think literal-The Beattie family has a long tradition of growing potatoes. Liz Beatties husband,ly two weeks later he walked into our office and said, I met Ken and Liz in P.E.I. and Ken, is a fourth-generation potato farmer and their son Barry, who oversees potatoIm back home now and would like to talk to them, says Beattie. We had a chat production on the Beattie farm, is a fifth-generation grower. Beattie laughs thatand hired him, so thats pretty fortuitous.Barrys six-year-old son could make it a sixth generation of potato farmers. She acknowledges that Beatties Distillers, like most successful businesses, has Beattie says the idea of branching out into the potato vodka business was bornhad to clear a few hurdles during its journey to where it is now. six years ago. Weve had our difficult times. We got [our potato vodka] into LCBO on April 28, Kenny went for lunch with a couple of buddies and they started talking about2016, and on July 1, 2016, we had a recall for a low alcohol level. It was devastat-making potato vodka. Kenny came home and said, I think we should look intoing, but LCBO were amazing, says Beattie.this. Theyre doing it out in P.E.I., and right now its costing us money to take theseThey worked with us and said, Just get out there and get the cases and bring [rejected] potatoes to the cattle feed, Beattie says.them back. So we did. Each and every one of us got into vehicles and went out and Not long afterwards, the notion started to pick up steam when the Beatties visitedgot all the cases, and within a week we had everything brought back to the distillery a P.E.I. potato farm making potato vodka while vacationing on the Island in 2013. and disposed of and we started over, she says. At the time, we thought, This is a Kenny and I took a trip out to P.E.I. and saw how they were doing it, Beattiebig bump but were going to get past this. And we did.says. We had a great conversation with the owner of the distillery, and we cameEverything is a learning experience and we certainly cant say that its been home so pumped, knowing that this was certainly something we could do ourselves.easy, but its made us stronger and maybe want this even more.Beatties Distillery was incorporated as a business in 2015 and it started sellingBeattie says she and her husband decided to build a distillery, not only as a way farm-crafted potato vodka a year later. The vodka was originally produced at anto diversify their farms income, but to also create an additional legacy business for outside facility but was brought in-house in 2017 when construction of a brand-newtheir family. distillery building was completed at the Beattie farm.Thats really important to us, she explains. We wanted to do something that The distiller at Beatties Distillers is a young man named Harrison Torr, who theour children, our grandchildren, and their children could carry on, and it all ties in Beatties first met during their tour of the P.E.I. distillery. with the farming as well.Hes from Innisfil, Ont., which is just a stones throw from Alliston. He was go- Thats important to Kenny and for everyone who works there too. We want everyone ing to school and doing an apprenticeship at the distillery out there, says Beattie. in the business to feel, and Im sure they do, like theyre family, they take ownership of The couple was impressed by Torr then and later thought hed be a great choiceit and that this is for their families too. We started this from the ground up, and its all as the distiller for their new business. But Beattie says finding him turned out to beof us. Everyones hard work has made it get to where it is today.tougher than they imagined.The P.E.I. distillery had closed down by this time, and online searches to try to track down Torr proved unsuccessful.8 SPUDSMART.COM FALL 2019'