Maritime Moonshine

I was in the Maritimes on a business trip last week, and since I had the weekend free, I drove over the bridge to PEI, looking to sample the local hooch, as the island reputation punches above its weight in tippling circles.
No other province has a longer history of moonshining than PEI, whose citizens suffered under the harsh yoke of Prohibition from 1900 to 1948, plus another 20 years of only being able to obtain booze with a government permit, making it the longest dry stretch of any jurisdiction across North America.
Most Canadian provinces had to endure Prohibition from around 1916-1924, with the exception of our wise Quebecois brethren, who emphatically voted Non to the whole idea. Let me tell you, Montreal was quite the tourist destination in the 1920’s, being pretty much the only place in North America to legally buy a drink.
However, isolated and insular PEI, with its small-town morals, fell under the spell of a fire-and-brimstone-spouting Anglican minister, who basically railroaded his entire congregation into supporting Prohibition, which eventually spread to the entire island.
Unsurprisingly, the devout parishioners seemed to develop selective amnesia as soon as the Sunday church services let out, as they went right back to the barn to tend their personal moonshine stills.
Apparently, a snootful of shine helped take the edge off the message of eternal damnation as the just reward of a life of debauchery that the demon liquor entailed.
Moonshine had become a deeply ingrained tradition on PEI for decades by the time Prohibition ended in 1948, and it didn’t stop then just because hooch was legal to purchase down at the Government liquor store.
No gentle reader, those crafty islanders kept right on cooking up their shine, just like their pappy and their grandpappy did before them.
In fact, the first legal distillery in PEI is not even old enough to drink yet. The Myriad View Artisan Distillery opened their doors in 2006, itself on the site of a former illegal still. Lest you think that is a bit scandalous, there probably isn’t a single farmhouse on PEI that didn’t have a moonshine still at one point, so that claim may be for marketing reasons more than anything else.
The flagship product from PEI’s first legal distillery is called Strait Shine, which was their only product when I first visited more than a decade ago, so I was pleasantly surprised to find they had added Gin, Vodka, Rum, and Brandy in their tasting room.
Unlike the more common corn-based moonshines, Strait Shine is made from molasses and cane sugar, in homage to the historical trade of fish for molasses that PEI had with the Caribbean hundreds of years ago.
Using molasses as the base for distillation produces a spirit with a smoky flavour, and just a hint of caramel. For comparison, a shot of Strait Shine is not unlike a young and unaged Tequila.
Because of the harsh taste, locals usually cut their shine with a cocktail mixer, often something sweet like apple juice or soda. For special events like weddings, a huge punchbowl spiked with moonshine has come to be expected by all guests.
I do not claim to take a slug from the bottle of Strait Shine every day, but when I do, my favourite recipe is a shot of shine over ice in a tumbler glass, then add two ounces of bar lime, and fill with soda water.
The bar lime adds sweetness to mask the harsh shine flavour, and the soda water classes up the whole affair to shake off any hillbilly connotations.
For many years, Strait Shine was only available in PEI, but distribution recently expanded into Alberta, and can be found at Willow Park and Co-op Liquor Stores.
This is another one of those moments that we should all bow our heads and give thanks to the privatized liquor distribution system that we enjoy in Alberta, which is the envy of boozers in the rest of the provinces. Free from the shackles of tyrannical government purchasing agents, our fair province enjoys a much wider selection of spirits than any other.
Do your bit to keep the system going by picking up a bottle of Strait Shine today!