Remember when a local Distillery decided to turn a New Brunswick candy tradition into a liqueur?
Moonshine Creek LTD CEO and Head Distiller Jeremiah Clark says it was five years ago Chicken Bones liqueur came to life.
“The company that makes chicken bones candy teamed up for the first year for the release of a very novel project. It was a viral success. People lined up around stores to get it, and several news agencies had reported it. It was a big thing. We, kind of, shattered a bit of a glass ceiling for our craft market.”
For those who aren’t familiar with the Ganong Chicken Bones candy, Clark tried to describe to us what the liqueur tastes like.
“It is a chocolate liqueur, a real chocolate liqueur, and it has cinnamon flavour in there as well. So much like the candy, it’s a chocolate and cinnamon flavour combination, that’s what you can expect in this liqueur. If you’ve ever had one of these candies, it’s a very iconic flavour. So much so that we often describe anything chocolate, or spicy in Atlantic Canada, as the chicken bone flavour. It’s become a bit of a colloquialism.”
The process to create a bottle of Chicken Bones Liqueur has changed a bit since the launch. Clark says they’ve had to refine it to make it more shelf-stable.
“Now it’s like a deconstruction of the same ingredients that are used in the candy to make it more shelf stable. So I mean in terms of weight and pounds, it would be hard to quantify how many candies it takes. Initially, when we were doing it, it was a lot. It was like a couple of pounds of candy per bottle,” Clark says.
He adds that Moonshine Creek Ltd. really underestimated how many people would like that nostalgic feeling that Chicken Bones Liqueur provides.
“The brand, the name, and just being able to create a new holiday experience,” Clark adds.
