Hey there and thank you for joining me for another episode of YQG in Bloom.
I'm your host Tracy Martens and today we are on location at Wolfhead Distillery in Essex
County, Ontario.
I think it's Amherstburg.
It sure is.
And this is a local staple that has been here since 2016 and they have a fabulous selection
and I have with me today Danielle Moldovan and she is the Director of Marketing and Business
Development here at Wolfhead.
Thank you for joining me.
Thank you.
I also have with me and I have to read this Courtney Stearns who is the Breavement Program
Manager at Julian's House.
That's right.
It's so nice to see you.
Now we're here today to talk about a really exciting event that we have coming up June
1st in LaSalle.
Did you want to tell us what we're going to be doing?
Yeah.
So this is the first like really big event for Wolfhead outside of our facility.
It's called Strawberrylicious and it's to celebrate the launch of our strawberry gin.
Which is right here and fabulous and I don't like gin so it's really good.
I converted Tracy.
So the event is a food and drink fest right before Strawberry Festival so the gin is in
celebration of the LaSalle Strawberry Fest and it's going to be an event where guests
can come and try different drinks and food trucks, they get socialized.
We've got some fun stations where they can try different cocktails, where they can make
their own little gin and all the food that's going to be incorporated will have an element
of strawberry.
So we're really celebrating the strawberry.
That's nice and it's all local vendors, all local food.
Now the strawberry gin, is this going to be full time here or is it just a special?
No, this is just a special edition so we will have it out for probably the summer, June
and July and as always if our Wolfhead fans really ask for it then I can maybe ask the
distiller to make another batch but for now it's a special release.
How many different spirits does Wolfhead have?
Yes, we have ten.
So back in 2016 when we opened we started with six and so that was a vodka, grapefruit
vodka, banana caramel vodka and then we had our regular whiskey, our coffee whiskey which
is our best seller, apple caramel whiskey and since then we've added a cinnamon whiskey,
we have our regular gin, we have a Cosmo which is our ready to drink and now we're adding
this beautiful strawberry gin.
And then you also have that fabulous one over.
Oh I forgot the cream liqueur.
Yes, the whiskey cream liqueur which is beyond amazing.
Yes, so that one we still have a couple bottles available so that one is like a limited release
as well which comes and goes so that one's a vanilla almond biscotti and then we also
have special releases that we put out in whiskeys so we'll put a hundred percent rye whiskeys
or a hundred percent yeah rye and so when Wolfhead opened back in 2016 our distiller
at the time put aside a hundred barrels and he did different recipes for each so the distiller
today will take three of those barrels and do a blend and that is our our lemon dude
release we call it a pot still whiskey so we usually do about two of those every year
and every year it's it's either a sixth year or a seven year it'll be an eight year so
that's what we've been up to.
And the strawberrylicious event which is going to be held at the LaSalle event centre is
on June 1st there's two different times 12 to 5 and then when is the second one?
And then 6 to 11.
6 to 11 and how are the ticket sales going for that?
You know what they're going really good so we started selling about a month ago so we're
about 50 percent sold out right now.
That's excellent.
Each session we're hoping to sell out at 700 guests so then we've got our our wonderful
volunteers so it should be a really good time we you know we wanted to give everybody an
opportunity to attend so those who don't like to drive at night can come during the day
there's a lot going on that weekend in Windsor so you can bop around.
Yeah it's going to be a lot of fun because I know you have Little Foot Foods and Bill
from Cheers and Chill Windsor and I should know that because he's been on my podcast
he's going to be doing a cocktail station and then you also have we have oven 360 so
they are going to be doing amazing pizzas and they've also added a Nutella strawberry
pizza and then we have Sammy's BBQ so they were here at Wolfhead back in March for our
chili fest they were one of the top three winners so they're going to be there doing
some smoked meats and then we have three dog poutinerie so they're going to be on board
as well and there'll be some surprise desserts.
Oh that would be nice and I know you have beverages other than our gin.
Yeah yeah so we'll have a regular what we call a regular festival menu so we'll have
our our hard root beer we'll have electric lemonade so you won't just have to enjoy strawberry
gin but we're also making a special strawberry vodka that will be at the event only and then
back here at Wolfhead for the month of June.
Okay I didn't know about that one.
Yeah that was a surprise.
A good surprise.
That's a good surprise.
And then we have Walkerville Brewery who's doing a strawberry lime cider for the event
and then we've made a strawberry wine so they'll be everything is to celebrate the strawberry.
You guys are doing a strawberry wine?
We are we are yes.
Oh my goodness okay I'm glad I'm not driving that day.
Now are there going to be bottles to sell there as well?
Yeah so technically we're not allowed to sell outside so right now when you buy your ticket
you are able to purchase a bottle that you can pick up at the end of the night and bring
home with you.
In fact that that was my next question what comes along with the tickets?
Yeah so the afternoon session is 20 and the evening session is 25 and what you get with
that is you get a visit to our sampling station so we have Fever Tree and Grant Morris who's
does mortgages.
He is sponsoring that station so you'll be able to go you'll be able to try the gin with
different Fever Tree.
So Fever Tree is like a tonic and a sparkling and then if you love it you can go to the
bar and order a drink and then we have so we did a special menu just with the strawberry
gin.
So we've got a gin smash we have mojitos and mules and then during the cocktail demo
he'll be making those and also sharing the recipes we'll have walk away recipes and then
so if you love that one you can try it at the bar and then we'll have we'll have regular
beer and wine available as well.
Excellent and also is there oh I actually forgot Tracy you get more than that with your
ticket.
I was going to say you told me more than this.
So actually a portion of the ticket is going to be benefiting Julie and House so that's
amazing and then each guest is going to get a voucher for a tour and tasting here at Wolfhead
that you can use up until the end of November so that has a $20 value and you get a complimentary
drink so you're actually getting about 30 to $35 value for your your ticket.
Well actually more than that because you're coming here as well I mean it's amazing and
like you said we're also doing proceeds towards Julian's House which is wonderful.
We are trying to raise a minimum of $5,000 to Julian's House and can you let us know
what Julian's House is.
Absolutely I'd be happy to.
So Julian's House is a local charity and it's in place to help people through grief and
bereavement after losing a loved one.
We are brought up with the idea that grief should be done behind closed doors and essentially
Julian's House is trying to change that narrative and so we're based in a peer-to-peer support
rather than clinical so it's not that we offer counseling or therapy but through our volunteers
that come and support us they also help other newly bereaved individuals with their own
grief experience so just recognizing that maybe you've had an experience and the way
you got through that grief experience there might be some insight in that for me or somebody
else and so we do that through our support groups we have one-on-one companions where
we would match a guest and a companion then we also have restorative activities because
it's great to talk through the grief but some people need to do through the grief as well
so we've got monthly walks that we do we could be a meditation class a gentle movement
class journaling the sky's the limit essentially we're trying all sorts of new things to help
people work through their grief.
And that's for all ages.
So right now our programming is in place for adult support only we are still new I like
to say that we are small and mighty and just growing from here essentially so one day down
the road we do hope to include child and youth programming as well.
That's wonderful.
Yeah.
I mean I feel that it is something that is needed and it is seriously lacking everywhere
like you said.
Absolutely.
Okay you cry you got through the funeral you're good to go.
Yeah we're led to believe that you should be through the grief experience in the five
to eight business days that a job might allow you to take after the loss of a loved one
and that couldn't be further from the truth of course.
No that is true.
Now tell me a little bit more about Wolfhead because I just discovered this place last
year and I love it.
I know you guys do a ton of events here throughout the year and you're always incorporating the
community.
Yeah we I mean we really do love to give back we get a lot of support from the Windsor Essex
community who come and visit our establishment so it's important for us to get back as well.
So we support a number of golf tournaments and charitable requests and then we try and
pick one or two bigger things that we can focus on throughout the year and so I mean
when Wolfhead started back in 2016 like they had no idea the owners what this place was
going to become and when when Tom and Sue decided to open it it was really the result
of happy accident I guess you could say.
Tom owned the facility has a pilot making business and he was going to do third party
bottling for another distillery and something fell through and he said why don't I just
do my own.
So he did some research and found out that there there wasn't a lot of craft distilling
happening in Ontario so he brought in the best equipment that money could buy and he
had the vision to put this restaurant.
He got his friend Larry Gerard on board who's the executive chef so he's one of the partners
and if I wish I could show you pictures of what this place looked like before this restaurant
because I go to Tom I said I would never have had that vision to bump out walls and do what
he did so they started with the indoor restaurant and now we have our patio we built a stage
last year so that we can do entertainment in the summer on weekends and then we started
to do events in the parking lot so parking lot party.
And then you've had chili fest here yeah and you've had a lot of a lot of things and then
we also have the your little store here which has wonderful things and is all of your products
in LCBO?
No so I would say 60% of them are so the only products you can't find are our regular whiskey
our apple caramel whiskey and like any of like the special releases that come out or
not in the LCBO and so we just you know as they come out we decide if we want to put
them in some of them we'd like to keep as exclusive to the stillery we've learned that
restaurants and bars some like it when there's a product that they can't find at the LCBO
it's a good attraction for their guests but we're really fortunate so you know we're in
the LCBO in Ontario we're in the duty-free at Pearson Airport at the Detroit Tunnel and
now we're starting to expand into Taiwan we had some products in Michigan just after
pandemic so we're hopefully trying to ramp that up and still offer some great cocktails
and food to our local fans.
Well that's the thing is you guys are expanding all over the place but yet the quality is
still amazing the feel is wonderful like you'd never know that you guys were expanding so
much.
Yeah it's you know like the home feeling.
Right exactly that's all the behind the scenes right so you know they say the spirits business
is a really sexy business to be in but it's a grind it's a lot of a lot of work and you
know you think oh I have my product in the LCBO and you think it's gonna be in every
store but you have to work to get those in the locations and then you know you go and
you do festivals and you do markets and it's all about people trying your product when
it's something that you can consume so that's a lot of fun and then the retail shop itself
we sell our bottles and then we do a lot of gifting we do corporate baskets so there's
a lot of little facets to Wolfhead.
And they have wonderful hoodies sweatshirts t-shirts and samplings so if there's something
that you're not sure about and I like you have those little tiny sampler packs which
are great with the little mixers with them there's just a lot of really good stuff.
Now you had said you guys were doing a strawberry wine are you guys thinking of going into wine
or is this just one thing?
No this is just for the event.
For the event?
Yeah just to celebrate everything strawberry.
I think that's a great idea why not?
You guys could do everything.
The only thing we don't make is rum or tequila.
Oh yes never say never.
I have to come up with something fancy for tequila because technically you're not allowed
to make it unless you're in Mexico.
I did not know that.
Yeah same with bourbon bourbon comes from Kentucky so that's another product that.
I volunteer going to Mexico.
There we go you can do that.
Now I love this idea I'm so excited for the Strawberrylicious Festival.
Thank you.
And again that is going to be June 1st at the La Salle Event Center and make sure you
get your tickets either online I would probably do it online because who knows if it's going
to be.
Yeah we're not sure if we're going to be able to allow walk-ins so I would say purchase
early.
I know everybody likes to wait until the week of but I would say don't be that person.
No don't be because everybody has been dying to get it and especially now that you guys
know that there's going to be a strawberry wine and the strawberry lime cider from Walkerville.
There's a lot of new things to try out so I want to thank you so much for being here
today.
Appreciate you.
I really do appreciate it and I am going to do a part two right now because just meeting
Courtney here is I want to learn more about Julian's house and I really want everybody
in the county to know more about it so that maybe we can help so that you guys can grow
and be amazing.
Yeah yeah because I had no idea about Julian's house until you're not alone.
Yeah how did it get started.
So while it's interesting in that you know you mentioned wolf heads history goes back
to 2016.
Coincidentally so does Julian's house.
The concept sort of started coming together in 2016.
There's something to that right and so essentially we had two local bereavement specialists Colleen
Campo and Christine McMillan who envisioned bringing something like Julian's house to Windsor.
Having a space dedicated to grief and bereavement for folks to come and just seek out that comfort
in others of like minds like hearts and the Godette family lost their son Julian and they
went to CMHA where Christine and Colleen were working at the time.
With a lot of their bereavement support through CMHA and their wonderful programming and just
from there you know brainstorming and long story short the Godette said we want to help
support this mission.
They had a property that was going to be their retirement plan and they said we're going
to work a little bit longer we want to donate this space to the cause and so that's how
Julian's house became Julian's house named after their son that they lost tragically
and you know from 2016 there was a lot of legal issues that they needed to address a
lot of permits to acquire all that sort of zoning issues for the house itself because
it was a home it was their family home and now we're turning it into a charity that helps
the community and so working around all of that.
In the meantime we know that grief doesn't wait for a building and so we have been operating
in and around the community our unofficial motto has been doing the best with what we've
got we know we've got an amazing community Wolfhead is a great example of that in supporting
us by allowing us to be the beneficiary of some of these funds that are coming in through
strawberrylicious and so we know that we're just going to get out there and we're going
to start and essentially using fundraising dollars to help turn what was once Julian's
home into Julian's house where we can welcome individuals from the community to come and
do whether it's a grief support group maybe a restorative restful yoga class we're going
to have a gardening club out there lots of different things even right down to just a
coffee hour maybe you're on your way to work and you're thinking I just don't know today's
a heavy day I don't know if I if I'm ready to get into work yet I'm going to take a quick
detour over to Julian's house stop in for coffee maybe sit with one of the volunteers
that we'll have on hand there just fill my cup both literally and and you know figuratively
and then be able to carry on my way to get to where I need to go next.
Yeah because I mean it really is so important yeah for everybody whether people realize
it or not like I mean yeah it's okay.
Okay I'm going to keep the tears in there because I'm still dealing with grief it's
been a year and a half and like you said it just it comes and waves and it'll hit you
when you least expect it.
Absolutely you can't plan for it.
No people don't understand that until they're going through it.
And sometimes you don't even realize how important that person was to you until they're not there
anymore and yeah I think a place like this is fabulous and do you are you guys lucky
enough to have other businesses that are doing fundraisers for you throughout this summertime?
So we have a we do have third-party fundraisers that are happening it could be guests of Julian's
house we had a really terrific family that put on a pasta fundraiser that went really
well we have golf tournaments coming up Laura what else do we have going on?
See this is where Laura should be on the mic.
Okay I'm going to pause here for a second as I said this is part two of my Wolfhead
Distillery Julian's house podcast and I'm going to say goodbye to Danielle and I'm going
to bring somebody else on from Julian's house to give us some more details on their fundraising
and different things that we can do to help them out and I want to thank you again Danielle
I really appreciate it and make sure you get online instagram wolfheaddistillery.com and
get your tickets for the Strawberry Delicious Festival and you will also be supporting Julian's
house.
Yeah very good so drink wolfhead.com Tracy we're going to send them drink wolfhead.com
drink wolfhead.com and the strawberry gin.
There you go yes Tracy gets a good little sample today.
Yeah.
All right thank you so much.
Thank you.
All righty now I have Laura Kay who is the.
Executive director for Julian's house.
Julian's house and she's going to give us a little idea of what exactly the community
has been doing for you guys.
So the community has been really supportive for the last couple of years since Courtney
and I started two years ago we've done so many things with fundraisers and we received
a trillion grant to open the doors at Julian's house.
So the community especially the construction community so from FBM building materials Rosati
group your plumber many many trades have really helped launch us forward and we just opened
the doors last week at Julian's house.
That's wonderful.
It is.
Oh I had no idea now where is Julian's house located.
So we're located on baseline road which is just south of the airport.
So it's a residential neighborhood which Courtney was mentioning that it's Julian's family home
but it's a perfect location we're going to be close to the new hospital that's being
built we're close to Walker Road we're close to the airport so it's really convenient for
people to to get to and from Julian's house.
And there's going to be activities that are going to be held there.
Absolutely so we'll run support groups in the evenings and some during the day but most
people's schedule would prefer the evenings and then on some evenings and weekends we
will have restorative activities as Courtney had mentioned we have a space for yoga classes
and art classes and demonstrations and educational components as well.
Can there be a stop in like if you just feel the need that I'm just struggling today.
Yeah we're not there right now but that is yes when we get the house open so right now
we've opened the Nick Dyer Clubhouse portion we're doing our construction in three phases.
So the first phase is just opened and we're moving our programming over there currently
and then our next phase is to open up the house and when we do that then it will be
a drop in center for coffee time and like Courtney was saying sometimes people's grief
is so strong that they're on their way to work or you know they they have something
they need to do but they really just need you know somebody around them that understands
what they're going through.
Yeah that five extra minutes.
Yeah it does.
Help handle the grief wave.
Yeah.
They hit you.
They sure do.
Yeah.
Even if it's like 10 years down the road or you sit there it's like oh it's the anniversary
and I didn't even realize it.
So we're in a we're trying to run an educational campaign right now so we're trying to educate
people about talking about grief.
So we have a campaign going on right now called Share Their Name and we want people to talk
about their loved ones.
We want them to share this story.
So you had mentioned earlier that you had lost your grandmother who was very close to
you so would you mind me asking what your mother your grandmother's name was?
Louise.
So we and seeing you got a smile on your face as soon as you said her name and that's exactly
what we're trying to communicate out in the public is that it's it's a gift when somebody
asks you about the loved one.
We want that to be normalized right Courtney?
Absolutely.
We aren't going to people haven't forgotten that they've lost a loved one.
We won't be reminding them you know by saying their name by asking them you know wouldn't
Louise have loved to be here to see this happening right?
It's you are allowing that person to talk about their lost loved one in a world where
we're otherwise meant to feel like we have to stop talking about them.
Sometimes talking about them helps make it more palatable.
Absolutely.
It actually always helps to make it a little bit more palatable.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah like she would be completely blown away I was doing anything like this but she would
loved it.
I'm sure.
Okay so how can the community support you guys?
Well they can attend strawberryalicious event with wolfhead.
That's a great event to support us it helps us tremendously.
They can also purchase a wristband.
Courtney has one on right here they're five dollars and the proceeds are 100% going to
Julian's house they're five dollars and available on our website and we also have a lawn sign
campaign so you could purchase a lawn sign in memory of Louise and put it right on your
front lawn and that is another way that you can help support our cause.
That's a really good idea.
The idea is that we're putting it front and center on their line on their lawn rather.
We would love to see when they're just covered in these signs helping to change that narrative
of continue to share their names.
That is a great idea.
And so we're shouting it from our front lawns.
Now are you guys going to have the bracelets at strawberryalicious for purchase?
We sure are.
Okay excellent.
Yeah we'll have them at the event and hopefully we'll sell a lot of them because it really
is nice to and it's a good little fidget tool don't you think?
Oh yeah absolutely.
You know if you're if you're going through your grief journey and you're going through
those emotions it's nice to be able to you know hold on to it and kind of ground yourself
for a moment of where you might be feeling that grief wave coming on right?
Yeah.
Yep.
And those can be purchased through our website.
I was just.
Also for the lawn signs or the bracelets if you're not able to get out to strawberryalicious
they can be purchased at julienshouse.ca there will be a link to take you right into our
shop and you can purchase those there.
And so we're having open houses every Friday in May from one to four and so you can come
on out and pick up a lawn sign or a bracelet or both and check out what we've got going
on out there.
That's great.
I love this.
And are you guys also on Instagram on social media as well?
So you can find Julian's house on social media and again make sure you get to the Strawberryalicious
Festival and we're going to try and raise at least five thousand dollars if not more
to help you guys out and keep in touch and make sure to let us know if you have any fundraisers
coming up and we will make sure to have it out there.
Absolutely and another way to support us you know people might not have the funds to donate
and we can certainly appreciate that the economy is doing some crazy things.
There are so many other ways to support us.
We have multiple opportunities for volunteers.
Yeah I was just going to say that volunteers you guys must be in need of volunteers as
well.
Absolutely so anything from help with our support groups we have these are all done
by volunteers so people who have that lived experience recognizing that speaking with
somebody else who has that can help newer bereaved individuals through their loss but
it could maybe that's not your you know what you're all about and so you could be volunteering
to help events like Strawberryalicious.
We have a number of volunteers helping that day from setup to ticket sales to tokens everything
in between.
There's so many so many opportunities.
And parking lot volunteers we need some of those.
We do for sure.
And if you can't do any of that I mean like I know a lot of people are busy and a lot
of people don't have a lot of money share.
Make sure to share.
I always say sharing on social media is a great way to support and it's free.
Yeah.
But get the word out there because we have valuable tools here like Julian's house for
people that are going through grief and they need our help and they need our support whether
it be sharing it or like you said volunteers donations and I really want to thank both
of you for being here and sharing with me about Julian's house.
Thank you and thank you for sharing your grandmother with us.
Yes thank you.
And again I'm at Wolfhead Distillery here and we are talking to them from Julian's house
and make sure you get online get the tickets for Strawberrylicious Festival that is coming
up June 1st at the LaSalle Event Center before the tickets are gone.
They're almost 50 percent gone now.
My name is Tracy Martens and thank you so much for joining me for another episode of
YQG In Bloom.