Fils du Roy distillery wins international awards for gin

A northeastern New Brunswick distillery is winning international awards for its unique gin that draws on techniques used roughly 200 years ago.

Sébastien Roy was a lifelong beer brewer but a few years ago he decided to try something new.

His distilling dreams took shape as his community, Petit Paquetville, was going through tough economic times.

The local bank had closed, the village church was for sale and many families had left for jobs in western Canada.

“We were very preoccupied. We said, ‘What can we do?’” Roy said.

So, in 2012, Fils du Roy distillery was born.

“We wanted to be an absinthe producer. Absinthe is something that was illegal for hundreds of years and became legal again in 2010,” he said.

Roy began producing absinthe but only on weekends.

During the week, he's a public servant and the rest of his family oversees the business.

Soon he was branching out into a world of gin and that recipe has attracted attention.

“There are ways that are faster and more automatic, but me I just wanted the steel pot, the way it was 150, 200 years ago,” he said.

“There's only a temperature gauge. Other than that, you need to smell the spirit, and observe every step of the production.”

The awards keep rolling in for the distillery.

Fils du Roy has won gold medals from the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2013 and another at last year's International Spirit Challenge in London

But with success comes pressure to expand.

Roy said he wants the distillery to stay small and focus on the original goal of creating employment in his community.

“We will not make a big difference in the economy of the north of the province but for the people who work here, it makes all the difference,” he said.

Roy said he does plan to expand his roster of spirits.

He said his next products will be a single-malt whiskey and rum.