Wood Buffalo Meatsweat Aquavit
Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada
Wood Buffalo Meatsweat Aquavit was a small-batch spirit made by Wood Buffalo Brewing & Distilling in Fort McMurray, Alberta. The distillery described it as a Danish-style aquavit with additional influences from Scottish and Mexican spirits traditions. It was bottled at 47.2% ABV in 375 ml bottles.
The base spirit was made from peated barley malt, using both Canadian and Scottish malt. According to Kensington Wine Market, the spirit was double distilled in a 240-litre Mueller pot still. The botanical recipe included caraway, coriander, chipotle, cumin, cinnamon and orange peel, with chocolate malt barley also listed among the ingredients.
The most unusual part of the production involved bison. During the second distillation, a washed roast of raw bison was suspended inside the still, allowing the spirit to pass around it during distillation. Kensington Wine Market noted that the meat was eaten afterwards. A January 2018 tasting described the process somewhat differently, saying that raw bison meat was washed and hung to dry over the base spirit.
After distillation, the spirit was matured in a combination of 55-litre new American oak barrels and 40-litre toasted Canadian oak casks. The available descriptions do not specify how long Meatsweat was matured, or how long the spirit spent in each type of cask.
Kensington Wine Market described the finished spirit as a full-bodied combination of savoury, umami and oak-spice notes. An independent tasting published in January 2018 noted strong botanical character and described the drink as a combination of double-distilled peated barley spirit, aquavit and mezcal. The reference to mezcal appears in that tasting description; Kensington Wine Market’s production description does not list mezcal as an ingredient.
Meatsweat was presented as a spirit for sipping or mixing in cocktails. Its production combined peated barley malt, traditional aquavit botanicals, chilli and spices, bison and small-format oak maturation, making it an unusual example of experimental Canadian aquavit from the late 2010s.
Bottle gallery
About the producer
Wood Buffalo Distillery
Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada
Wood Buffalo Brewing & Distilling was a brewery and craft distillery in Fort McMurray, Alberta. It opened in 2013 as part of Bearhill Brewing, the Alberta-based group behind Jasper Brewing Company, Banff Avenue Brewing and, later, Last Best Brewing & Distilling in Calgary. Wood Buffalo Brewing was described as Fort McMurray’s first and only microbrewery and distillery and became a local producer of beer as well as spirits.
The brewery operated at 9914 Franklin Avenue in the Morrison Centre. Contemporary descriptions note that its beer was brewed on site and that the business also operated a distillery. The distilling side produced spirits including vodka, gin and whisky, while the brewery remained the more visible part of the business.
One of the distillery’s best-known projects was created in response to the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire. When the evacuation took place, a pallet of heavily peated Scottish malt remained outside the brewery. After the fire, the malt had absorbed smoke from the wildfire. The malt was tested by Canada Malting and found safe to use, after which Wood Buffalo’s distillers Bryce Parsons and Spike Baker decided to turn it into a one-off whisky.
The whisky was eventually named The Beast. The spirit was distilled at Wood Buffalo and placed into oak barrels to mature. After six years of ageing, the whisky was bottled and released in 2022 through a project involving the Fort McMurray Fire Fighters Association. Only a small number of bottles were released through charity auctions, with proceeds going to local causes.
Wood Buffalo Brewing & Distilling survived the 2016 wildfire and reopened, but the business later closed. A 2024 article in The Whisky Explorer states that the brewery and micro-distillery did not survive the economic downturn that followed the wildfire and closed in mid-2019. Contemporary evidence also places the closure in 2019: a June 2019 visitor review already referred to the Wood Buffalo Brewing Company as closed.
The closure did not end the careers of everyone involved. Head Distiller Bryce Parsons later became Master Distiller at Maligne Distillery, while the Wood Buffalo name remained associated with a small number of unusual spirits and with The Beast, one of the more distinctive whisky projects to emerge from the Alberta craft-distilling scene.
Meatsweat Aquavit was one of the more unusual products associated with the Wood Buffalo distillery. Its combination of peated Canadian and Scottish malt, aquavit botanicals, bison treatment and maturation in new American and toasted Canadian oak reflects the experimental approach that the distillery occasionally applied to spirits production.