Turner Valley's old movie theatre is being transformed into the first craft distillery in the province and the owners of Eau Claire Brewery are making the leap from beer to spirits.

The old theatre was built in 1923 and was on a strip of street that was aptly named “Whiskey Row”.

The craft company will use small-farm ingredients to produce a premium line of gins, vodkas and whiskeys.

David Ferran is the founder of Eau Claire Distillery and says the still and equipment were custom made in Germany.

The reflux columns attached to the still are almost six metres tall so crews had to be careful when they installed them into the old building.

“We only just managed to fit them in this old building,” said Farran. “We’re two inches off the top of the roof.”

Farran says making spirits is quite different from making the hard stuff.

“In some ways it’s a very similar process but it’s kind of taking the next step so in order to make good whiskey you have to make good beer and beer or wort is the fundamental product behind what you’re distilling, so it’s very similar from that perspective. But then when you go on into gins and vodkas, it’s a completely different process,” said Ferran.

On Friday, a crew from Europe was inside setting up all the new equipment and they hope to have the first batch of vodka ready by April. 

“We’ve got a team of guys that have come over from Europe, and they’re putting the final touches and we'll be starting to produce, probably at the end of next week,” said Farran.

“It is very specialized,” said Lewis Harsanyi, from Bavarian Breweries and Distilleries. “We do much of the installation work already at our factory back in Hungary. We receive the steel from Germany and we install it already in our factory, assemble and then when all the piping is done and valves are connected, then we disassemble, ship it and reassemble and finalize the installation.”

The same equipment is used for each of the spirits so they have to be produced in batches.

“So batch one will be vodka,” said Ferran. “And then we’ll come out with a gin thereafter and then in the meantime, we’ll be putting away product into barrels and aging them and we might not have whiskeys out for three years.”

The owners say Alberta is the natural choice for creating a craft distillery because of the availability of premium grains and other products used in the process.

“There really is a demand from the consumer, like the idea of craft production, as opposed to mass production. Knowing what the ingredients are, where they’re sourced,” said Larry Kerwin, Distiller and  Master Brewer. “There ‘s a lot of that in Calgary where people really do want to know what they’re eating, what they’re drinking, where it came from, that sort of thing.”

For more information, visit the Eau Claire Distillery website.

(With files from Kevin Fleming)