Authentic Seacoast Brewery and Distillery opens new facility in Guysborough
Liquor business at golf course part of $20M investment Glynn Williams has made on Eastern Shore
Nova Scotia's largest distillery officially opened on Saturday in Guysborough, N.S.
Authentic Seacoast Brewery and Distillery at the Osprey Shores Golf Resort celebrated its grand opening with live music, tours and free samples of the brewery's Rare Bird beer.
The multi-million dollar facility is owned by entrepreneur Glynn Williams, head of Toronto-based Reliance Aerotech. Williams has been pouring money into the community for the last 10 years — about $20 million in total.
The former financier owns a collection of businesses there under the Authentic Seacoast brand. They include a soap-making operation, a coffee roaster, a craft brewery, the Rare Bird Pub and the Skipping Stone Cafe.
Last September, he said he hoped to at least double his workforce in the community from the two dozen full-time jobs he had created by then. Over the last four decades Guysborough has lost two-thirds of its population to outmigration.
"We're doing this for lots of reasons, one of which is to create meaningful, sustainable, year-round jobs in this community of approximately 400 or 500 people where every job matters," he said then.
'A social investment'
"There are way easier ways to make money at less risk. This is more of a social investment than it is a financial investment. It's to see if we can reverse the tide of people leaving and we can continue to build and contribute to the community."
Williams couldn't be immediately reached by phone on Saturday.
The business's website claims the distillery, which is home to Glynnevan Whisky, Sea Fever Rum and Fortress Rum, is the first at a golf course in the world.
A detachment of the Cannoniers/Bombardiers, accompanied by members of the field music corps, from the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site were scheduled to take part in the celebrations, in part to highlight centuries of brewing and distilling in Nova Scotia.
Truro's Juno-Award winning Garrett Mason was to play the Rare Bird Pub Saturday evening.
With files from Pauline Dakin and Zak Markan