It was so wild, so big, and so difficult to control, that firefighters named it “the beast”.
Fort McMurray in northern Alberta made world headlines this year when a giant fire destroyed a good portion of the town, and vast areas of forest.
The entire town had to be evacuated.
Although it’s been a struggle for many residents to rebuild their lives and businesses, one business is turning that disaster into something good.
Normally the Wood Buffalo Brewing Company in Fort McMurray creates special craft beers. But when the staff returned after the fire, they found the building intact, although it suffered a lot of smoke damage, and a pallet of malted barley that had been left out but not destroyed.
Head brewer Spike Baker said the 1000kg of barley absorbed the wood smoke during the month long fire giving it a unique smoky flavour.
It was already heavily peated malt destined for whisky, but it absorbed this extra flavour,” Baker told the Edmonton Journal. “You can taste the malt, but it also has this smoky campfire taste to it. This is definitely going to be a one-off whisky because these conditions are never going to be repeatable”.
Because whisky takes time, none of the limited batch will be available until at least five years from now.
The bottles will be slowly auctioned off with most of the proceeds going to support the Friends of Fort McMurray Firefighters CharitiesFund.
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