Do Good Spirits co-owners Matt Murphy and Scott Drouillard are using their ties to Sault Ste. Marie in order to test the market for HvO Spring Water Vodka.
The Ontario-made premium vodka is currently being sold at a number of LCBO retail outlets, including the Sault.
“We wanted to pick a couple of different markets where we knew we had roots, and we knew we had strong ties. We would get a lot of trial of our product and we would subsequently get a lot of people posting and sharing photos and things like that, where we can turn around and use that as part of our marketing content,” said Murphy. “The Sault was a really important market for us to move into.”
Murphy and Drouillard are longtime friends, having known each other since attending White Pines Collegiate and Vocational School back in the day. Murphy spent his high school years in the Sault. Drouillard, a former member of the Sault Storm football team, grew up in the city.
“Still very much feels like home, even though my parents have since actually moved away from the Sault. But we have so many friends and family, and we spent our formative years there,” said Murphy. “Growing up as teenagers in the 90s, those years sank such deep roots into making who you are. Our identity is very much tied to the Sault.”
“I mean, anyone that asks us where we’re from, we’re from the Sault,” Drouillard added.
Murphy and Drouillard were on vacation around two years ago when they decided to go into business together. After settling on making spirits, they decided to produce vodka, which Murphy says accounts for the biggest category at the LCBO.
“We started talking about it probably two years ago, and in earnest, it really became sort of a COVID project that the two of us leaned into,” Murphy said.
In the search for Canadian ingredients, they found spring water that’s sourced from Elmvale, Ont. in Springwater Township. Murphy describes the spring water as “super, super clean naturally-forming water” that’s been tested as some of the cleanest water in the world.
“We got to this idea of water, and it became sort of a central tenet in our brand, and became the key ingredient that I think differentiates the vodka that we’ve made,” he said.
HvO Spring Water Vodka starts with barley mash that’s used as a base grain. Once it’s distilled, it goes through a proofing process where water is added in order to produce alcohol.
“That’s where we add our spring water, and we really feel like this is the differentiator of our product,” said Murphy. “The barley does create a little bit of a softness, a little bit of a sweetness - but then you add the spring water, and quite frankly, there’s some mineral content in that spring water. It’s not reverse osmosis - we put it in as it came out of the ground.”
They had to research the process for making spirits and registering their company in order to be able to sell at the LCBO. Then, they went with a distilling and bottling partner that Murphy says served as the experts in “bringing their vision to life.”
“The process, I don’t want to say it’s straightforward because it takes a long time - I mean, it took us over a year really working at it to get it to shelves. But you just ask questions, you just talk to people. You figure out for yourself what the next step is, and that was also sort of the exciting piece of this, to build something from nothing,” Murphy said.
Drouillard says that the response from consumers, including those in the Sault, has been overwhelmingly positive.
“I mean, we can’t say enough about the support we’ve received from not only our network of friends and family, but really, everybody that we’ve come across have been so supportive and so uplifting, wanting to push the product for us,” said Drouillard. “It’s been a bit of a surreal experience.”
More information on HvO Spring Water can be found on Do Good Spirits’ Facebook and Instagram accounts.