Shrugging Doctor christens new winery and tasting room

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/03/2024 (576 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In January 2017, Willows Christopher and Zach Isaacs officially entered the Manitoba drinks trade as Shrugging Doctor Brewing Co. The pair, then in their early 20s, began producing a modest handful of meads and ciders with a focus on delivery at a time, pre-pandemic, when there weren’t many options for ordering booze to your home.

Fast forward to today, Christopher and Isaacs, now both 28, have just opened their new 7,000-square-foot space at 483 Berry St. With about 10 wines on the go at any given time, as well as vodka sodas, hard iced teas, sangrias and more, both the quantity and quality of the products have ramped up.

Isaacs and Christopher first met in Grade 7, and grew up as friends in North Kildonan. In 2015 they registered as a partnership, incorporated Shrugging Doctor — now called Shrugging Doctor Beverage Company — in early 2016 and launched the following year. When they incorporated, the plan was to enter the market as a brewery. That inclination faded when the pair realized how much the equipment would cost.

For Christopher, it was imperative Shrugging Doctor succeed; when he turned 18, he and his parents disagreed on what direction he should go and he left home.

“We’re on much better terms now,” he is quick to clarify. “They were at the launch (of the new facility on March 1), they’re very, very supportive. But they’re both public school teachers. And I don’t think they really liked my trajectory.”

With some help from Futurpreneur Canada and the Business Development Bank of Canada, Isaacs and Christopher were up and running — although getting their booze delivery service off the ground wasn’t easy at the outset.

“The LGCA (Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Authority of Manitoba) — they didn’t want to let us do it. They actually said no. And we had to say, ‘OK, where in the Liquor Control Act does it say you can’t do that as a manufacturer?’ Well, it doesn’t say it specifically. And my lawyer always told me if it doesn’t say specifically that you can’t, then that means you can.”

Shrugging Doctor’s home-delivery program caught the attention of consumers before the days SkipTheDishes and the like included booze among their offerings.

“I don’t want to say it was a gimmick, but it was a way to get our product in people’s hands. So we started with a very rudimentary mead and apple cider and stuff like that,” Christopher says.

The pair eventually set up shop in a 2,000-square-foot space on Brooklyn Street, which they closed in July 2023 to focus on demolition and renovation at the Berry Street location.

“We were busting out of the seams of that place,” Christopher says of the old location. “And while we were just around the block from where we are now, this space has much better visibility.”

It took some time — and a bunch of money — before the new spot (which used to be a CrossFit studio) started to take shape. The space first needed to be brought up to code for manufacturing alcohol — which comes with its own stringent standards — as well as for a commercial kitchen.

“We had spent $100,000, and it looked like nothing had changed,” Christopher says. “It was only in the last few months that like it really came together — once we got paint on the walls it was like, ‘OK, this isn’t looking like a construction zone anymore.’”

The 1,700-square-foot tasting room offers Shrugging Doctor’s core products by the glass and in flights, as well as cocktails, a beer they’ve made in conjunction with Fort Garry Brewing Co. and more. The space can accommodate 100 people, and is decorated with dark colours and an eclectic array of furniture picked up second-hand and from estate sales.

In addition to saving money, the repurposed decor, is a tip of the hat to the business’s original concept, says Christopher. “When people ask me where the name Shrugging Doctor comes from, I say that I think of myself as, like, a travelling doctor… with a wagon full of elixirs that can cure anything. So we kind of leaned into that esthetic here.”

With craft beer sales stagnating somewhat, the shift in focus to fruit wines proved to be a blessing in disguise.

“I’m glad we kind of fell into wine,” says Christopher. “We’ve really carved out our little niche here. The (craft beer) market seems to be proving that Winnipeg might be a little bit oversaturated. There are cities with many more breweries per capita, but Winnipeggers also seem to be a bit… discerning.”

Then there’s the tasting room’s food service component.

“A restaurant was one of the things I said I never wanted to get into,” says Christopher, laughing. Under the direction of Alyssa Winzinowich of Prairie Wolf Bakery, Shrugging Doctor is serving up a range of snacks as well as flatbreads, panini and charcuterie.

Shrugging Doctor’s team of five is already plenty busy visiting farmers markets year-round. But there’s more — in June 2023 Christopher and Isaacs also took over Maple Leaf Rubber Stamp, a 92-year-old company located on Richard Avenue.

“The old owners were retiring,” says Christopher. “I brought it to my lawyer to start the due diligence process… and he goes, ‘What do you know about stamps?’ And I said, ‘What did I know about wine?’”

Today Isaacs and Christopher know plenty about wine, particularly fruit wines and meads, for which they’ve received eight medals at national competitions over the last five years.

“I don’t know if humbling is the right word, but it’s like, validation — I know those 2017 products wouldn’t have won anything. We’ve had years and years to kind of tighten our craft.”

Shrugging Doctor now also makes wine from cold-climate grape varieties grown in its 2 1/2-acre plot in the Pembina Valley.

“Most of our clippings we buy are from the agricultural research program at the University of Minnesota. They’re good to minus 40,” Christopher says.

The vineyard was originally planted by someone making homemade wine as a hobby who decided to give it up.

“The grapes were in kind of rough shape when we took over,” he says. “The first year, we just bought the grapes off of him. The second year, we went out and helped do the harvest. And then the following year, we just took over completely.”

Christopher is hoping to ramp up events in Shrugging Doctor’s tasting room in the coming months. The first is a Manitoba-made wine and cheese tasting featuring eats from Loaf and Honey happening Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $45 at wfp.to/joG.

In the meantime, he hopes Winnipeggers will support local, be it Shrugging Doctor or otherwise.

“It looks like the craft alcohol industry is starting to suffer — and it probably gets worse before it gets better,” he says. “I like to remind people, very politely, that if you don’t shop local, there won’t be any local.

“I know money’s tight for consumers as well, but if you’re feeling it, so are the businesses.”

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Wines of the week

Shrugging Doctor NV Cranberry Wine ($15.99, winery, Liquor Marts and beyond)

Pale red in colour, this fruit wine brings all the intensity and acidity you’d expect from such a tart fruit, with decent intensity of flavour and almost a hint of tannin on the finish. Expresses pure, racy cranberry flavours nicely. 3.5/5

Shrugging Doctor 2021 Carmine Jewel Sour Cherry Wine ($19.63, winery, Liquor Marts and beyond)

Medium ruby in colour, the fresh cherry aromas here are front and centre, with an intriguing secondary note that lands somewhere between mint and black tea. It’s mainly dry, light-plus-bodied and quite zippy, with tart cherry notes working well with the moderate acidity. The purity of the fruit flavours in this award-winning fruit wine is impressive. 4/5

Shrugging Doctor 2022 “The Great Vandal” White Wine ($26.78, winery and beyond)

Made from grapes grown in the Pembina Valley, this white is pale straw in colour and brings fresh apple, herbal and secondary pear notes, with a hint of honeycomb in there as well. On the light-bodied palate a herbal, almost-saline note comes with the crunchy apple and honeyed notes before a modest finish. 3/5

 

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