What's considered the best Canadian Whiskey is located right in our backyard. 

Just recently the crew out at Last Mountain Distillery were awarded the 2019 Micro Distillery of the Year by the Canadian Whiskey Awards, along with a gold and two bronze medals to go with it. 

The honour came after the team entered their product into a yearly competition according to Master Distiller, Braeden Raiwet.

"It gets distributed to blind tasting judges and then they score it accordingly and awards are given out based on that score. We're definitely very humbled about it, to get some of those awards compared to some of the big guys in the game like Wisers, Crown Royal, stuff like that. For our whiskey to be recognized right alongside if not better than some of those guys it's definitely humbling, especially a small micro-distillery in Saskatchewan."

Standing shoulder to shoulder with well-established products that have been in the business for many years, Raiwet said there are a few things that separates them from the pack.  

"I think not only the awesome grains that we have easy access to in Saskatchewan, other than that being a micro-distillery we have a little bit more freedom in some of the stuff that we make we get to play around a little bit more (and) we're doing small batches. With every batch, there's definitely a lot of pride that goes into it, so I think all of those factors play into a great product."

Last Mountain Distillery came from very modest beginnings, but that quickly changed as years went by and the demand grew.

"I joined on in 2014 as they ramped up their production, I start lending a hand with Collin. We built an addition on in 2016 almost doubling our space, just for things like barrel storage as a whiskey you have to age it for three years in a barrel, with more whiskey comes more storage for stuff like that. We've slowly, slowly been growing as we've gone, went from a two car garage in 2010 to where we are now in 2019."

Raiwet said they plan to continue to enter the competition each year at the Canadian Whiskey Awards as they continue to perfect their product and bring in new additions.