Stéphane Pilon, Owner and Master Distiller, speaking to guests at the official opening of the Diony Distillery & Gallery. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

By Alessia Proietti

Whiskey: Diony Distillery & Gallery

Red Deer County’s first distillery & art gallery holds official opening

Nov 10, 2023 | 9:49 PM

It was like finding a speakeasy: driving behind Westerner Park through the rural streets of Red Deer County to find its first distillery, tucked away in a warehouse. Through the doors of Diony Distilleries were brightly colored art pieces, a wall of barrels up to the ceiling with engraved portraits on the tops, and in the far back, a wooden armoire filled with glass bottles of whiskey.

Friday evening, Diony Distillery & Gallery (102B-303 Larch Close) celebrated their official opening and art reveal as the first distillery in the county, having begun production in 2018, offering free samples of their four locally crafted whiskeys, ranging from 46-50 per cent in alcohol, as roughly 20 invited guests enjoyed the art of Olds’ Brett Heidi.

“It really is mimicking what was happening centuries ago because you’re really reliant on good grain, you’re reliant on good barrels and that’s what you want in the end. Really fine whiskey should be a natural process and it’s the interaction of all this grain you have through fermentation, through distillation, through aging and then it comes alive in your glass and that’s what we want to do here,” said Stéphane Pilon, Owner and Master Distiller, adding their goal is for quality, not quantity.

Previously the general manager at a local Canadian Tire, Pilon wanted to start a whiskey business with his wife after a trip to New Zealand where he was inspired by a distillery making vodka from whey in cheese products.

Curious about the spirit world in Alberta, he approached the County in 2017 and bought his first copper still, used to distill spirits while removing sulfates which can reduce the negative effects of alcohol like headaches.

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Pilon in front of the copper still used to make his whiskey at Diony Distillery & Gallery. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

“[We were] very well received by the County, open arms, and it’s a farming community; a lot of the grain comes from here,” he said, adding the central location between Edmonton and Calgary makes it a hidden gem.

Over the next year, he says they started developing whiskey recipes that today are made up of 65 per cent malted rye, 30 per cent malted barley and five per cent oats. Filling their first wooden barrel in 2019, they let the whiskey age for three years.

This summer at the International Whisky Competition in a blind consumer test, their Port Cast Finish whiskey won silver and their Campfire whiskey won gold for Best Canadian Whiskey. The latter also won gold at the SIP Awards for Canadian Barrel/Small Batch Whiskey.

Four whiskeys made by Diony Distillery. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

Pilon gave guests a tour of the warehouse, explaining the intricate steps of how the whiskey is made, from the moment the locally grown grains arrive, their waste reduction methods of returning spent grains back to farmers for animal feed, and the various temperatures within the warehouse that impact the quality of the whiskey during the aging process.

But the other piece of the passion project lies in the art.

Pilon explained how wooden barrels are best used the first time for whiskey in extracting their flavours. While waiting for the whiskey to age, he decided to engrave historical photos on the tops, to be later sold as works of art.

“I get really enamoured with a picture and I say, ‘this needs to make it to a barrel’, for what it looks like, for what the story is about, and those things have triggered inspiration in me. Let’s put this on a barrel and let’s talk about it amongst friends. Whether you’re having a whiskey or not, you’re facing this barrel and it has a story to tell and the more you look at it, the more the story becomes complex and they’re stories of our past; we wouldn’t be here without the past so it’s good to look into it,” he said.

Engravings made by Pilon on the tops of wooden barrels used to age whiskey. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

Even the name Diony has a story to it: short for Dionysus, the Greek God of Wine.

“Dionysus came to Alberta, could not find grapes, found the finest grain, made the finest whiskey,” Pilon joked. “The story goes, he would liven up a party, he would mix things up, he would be creative.”

He also decided to use the distillery space as an art gallery for local artists, finding the works of Heidi displayed at Red Deer’s Horse Expo.

The used wooden barrels can also then be used to make rum, which Pilon says they may do in the future.

Until then, he gives workshops at the distillery, providing guests with a hands-on experience to how whiskey is made.

He says their products are starting to enter liquor stores in Edmonton as they begin the process in Red Deer. Bottles range between $115-125 and can be purchased online or at their location.

Official opening of the Diony Distillery & Gallery on Friday in Red Deer County. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

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