TRANSCRIPT

Interview with John Hall, President and C.E.O. Kittling Ridge Estate Wines and Spirits - John Explains The History of Reider Distillery

The company was established in 1992, that's when I invested in it. The facility here originally was strictly a distillery that had started back in the mid 70's. A fellow by the name of Otto Reider, who actually immigrated from Switzerland, and when he came to the Niagara area, he discovered all of the glorious fruit that grow in the area, the cherries, the strawberries, the plums, and the grapes and decided that this would be a great place to build a distillery and make eaux de vie's (a.k.a. Schnapps), eaux de vie's being distilled alcohol that is made from fruit. Eaux de vie's are very popular in Europe, but not so popular in North America. So Otto Reider actually made some excellent, excellent eaux de vie's out of Ontario grown fruit but his only problem was the marketing of it. Because people just in Canada drank whisky and vodka and rum but they didn't drink eaux de vie's such as Kirsh and Slivovice and Poire Williams, so he had limited success and unfortunately the company was ailing, and in 1992, I came across it and discovered that it would make an excellent winery as well as a distillery, so I invested in it and changed the name to Kittling Ridge.