Mild weather may have foiled its plans last year, but Dunrobin Distilleries is ready to return to the Rideau Canal Skateway this season.
“Weather permitting, we’re ready to go,” co-founder and CEO Adrian Spitzer told OBJ. “We’re planning on having two booths on the canal this year.”
At one kiosk, the company has a license to sell bottled spirits and, at the other, it will be offering hot toddies and other hot drinks.
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The Stittsville-based distillery made history in 2022 when it started selling alcohol out of a licensed cocktail kiosk on the canal. According to Spitzer, the company had big plans to return for another year, but Mother Nature got the best of things.
For the first time in the skateway’s history, warm weather prevented the ice from freezing over, keeping the 7.8-kilometre stretch closed to skaters for the entire season.
“The canal didn’t open for the first time in forever,” he said. “It was disappointing. With global warming and everything going on, everything’s very unpredictable.”
Climate change has led the National Capital Commission, which operates and maintains the skateway, to make some changes to the way it collaborates with vendors like Dunrobin Distilleries.
“The NCC recognizes the reality and impacts of climate change on the Rideau Canal Skateway; we work in collaboration with our operators and are flexible when signing an agreement,” spokesperson Sofia Benjelloun said in a statement to OBJ.
According to Benjelloun, the NCC is in the process of finalizing agreements with this year’s vendors, which include six operators at nine locations along the skateway.
While Benjelloun said there are no alternative locations for vendors to set up if the skateway doesn’t operate, vendors aren’t charged rent for the days the skateway isn’t open.
She added that the NCC has offered some assistance to vendors who weren’t able to operate last year.
“In light of last year’s disappointing outcome, the NCC has offered operators, where applicable, the opportunity to return for an additional season at their same location,” she said.
With the recent failure-to-open top of mind, it’s a potentially costly risk to sign a deal to operate on the skateway. But, for some, it’s a risk that’s worth taking.
In a recent interview with OBJ, BeaverTails co-founder Grant Hooker said it can cost $70,000 to $90,000 to crane the Beaver Mobiles onto the ice and remove them in the spring, not to mention the time and money put into recruiting and training staff and the profits missed out on.
While Hooker said the company is taking a slower approach to finalizing plans this year, a year of losses isn’t a big concern.
“We’re diversified and therefore we’re able to absorb losses such as last year’s,” he said. “The skateway is a seasonal business and they’re feast or famine each year. You rely on the feast years to cover the famine years.”
Spitzer also understands the unpredictable nature of the skateway.
“You have to calculate risk,” he said. “You don’t think it’s going to be the first time it’s not going to open. All the time and energy got shelved and you try to go back to those notes and say, okay, this happened last year so what do we do this year? How does the strategy and approach change and evolve? You try to mitigate the risk.”
One way the company is doing that is by putting off its application for a special occasion permit from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission, which is non-refundable once paid. Spitzer said they’re also mitigating employment expectations and trying to work with internal staff before hiring external workers on a part-time basis.
“People enjoy working on the canal and the experience is great,” he said. “But it’s a little unnerving when you don’t really know what’s going to happen.”
