Sector: Distilling and Manufacturing
Principals: Aisling Goodman, Dorian Redden
Year launched: 2023
Unique selling proposition: Offering unique, herbal- forward spirits with a goal of becoming completely carbon neutral by 2030.
Strategy: Combining a science-based, environmentally responsible approach to distilling with the bountiful ingredients offered by nature.
Website: holocenedistillingproject.com
Fourteen months of production — but nearly a decade of inspiration — into the Holocene Distilling Project, Dorian Redden and Aisling Goodman are building more than a business. Art? Meet science.
“That’s what distilling is. There’s so much math, there’s so much science involved, every day is a new science experiment for us,” says Goodman. “But it’s all about the art of distillation, which is centuries old, and we really want to pay homage to that tradition and keep that tradition in it while still doing new things in the industry.”
Nestled in a tamed forest off a secondary road in Cobble Hill, Holocene distills eight products and collaborates on several others with local businesses. The business partners are distilling their dreams of an enterprise that produces quality, craft spirits that range from Flivver Vodka — “our very first baby,” says Goodman — to Honey, I’m Home Gin to Lost & Found spiced fruit brandy.
At the same time, they are utilizing and developing systems that will make Holocene Distilling carbon neutral by 2030, such as heat capture and their waste treatment field, all on a “bootstrap budget.”
“For distilling and the alcohol industry, you don’t really see a whole lot of push for sustainability efforts. You see huge progress on the green side of things in many other industries, but I feel like brewing and distilling and manufacturing sort of falls behind in that regard,” says Redden.
“We want to show other, larger companies that a small, little home business is able to make these efforts, and we want to show that it is attainable and it’s not something that you need to ignore.”
Redden’s science background — the former Victorian has a diploma in mechanical engineering from Camosun College — and Goodman’s background in herbal medicines, botanicals and bartending — “plus I handle the accounting!” — drive this environmentally responsible business.
Redden points to their collaborations with other local businesses, which benefit all parties. “On one hand, we collect other local companies’ waste and refuse products to make our own products, so that they’re in a circular economy, they get reused, they don’t go to waste,” adds Goodman. “But we also give our products to other local companies to make things like marmalades, or jellies, or perfumes.”
