Minhas Sask Distillery, Winery & Brewery - Saskatoon

Background:  Founded in 2017, by Moni Minhas, Minhas Sask is the largest Brewery, Distillery, Winery & Cidery in the history of Saskatchewan. With the main objective of providing a long-term boost to the Saskatchewan economy and reversing the flow of alcoholic imports into the province of Saskatchewan, from other provinces and other countries, Moni Minhas, the founder of Minhas Sask is committed to using as many local Saskatchewan ingredients in his products as possible. This includes barley, fruits, honey and other products.  All the products are distilled, blended, produced, bottled in Regina Saskatchewan.   This helps the province’s economy sustain increased growth. The slogan “Made Of Saskatchewan” expresses the concept that our company’s products are made with local Saskatchewan raw materials, created by local ingenuity and people. Being a local business, the main ideology of the company is to support other local businesses and help them expand in any way possible. Therefore, we shop local and serve local so that the dollar stays local.

Facilities:  Spread over several acres, Minhas Sask has three locations, at 435 McDonald St and 444 McLeod St in Regina and at 602 51 St in Saskatoon.  Both cities contain a Gift Shop, off-sales retail store and distribution centre.  All the manufacturing and packaging takes place in our expansive Regina campus which runs between McLeod to McDonald streets.  We have 100+ tanks, 4 vessel brewhouse, 2 state-of-the-art distillation columns, sugar inverter, cold filtration systems, yeast propagation systems, canning, bottling and kegging lines, sophisticated quality control lab and a variety of sophisticated equipment for creation and production of our products.  We offer educational tours and tasting experiences in a dedicated hospitality room, which is also available for private social and reception events for up to 75 people.  Minhas Sask has the largest fleet of its own vehicles operating from 2 distribution centre and 4 warehouses, delivering our products to each and every city or town in Saskatchewan on a weekly basis. 

Variety of Products Produced:  Our state-of-the-art facility produces alcoholic products at affordable prices in almost all categories including:

Beers:  Craft, budget and specialty

Spirits: Vodkas, Whiskies, Gins, Rums, Brandy, Ready to Drink Cocktails, Moonshines, Cream Liquors, liqueurs, and cordials

Winery:  Dry, semi dry, carbonated and fortified wines, and

Ciders:  Apple, pear and 15 fruit ciders

Personnel:  We employ 120+ staff in Regina and Saskatchewan, as well as tasting personnel in almost all other cities.  It is interesting to note that none of our employees had any prior experience in creation or production of alcoholic or any other types of beverages before starting work for our company.  As a result, all of them have been trained by our company, and without any financial assistance from provincial or federal funding.  Moni Minhas arranges, leads and coaches the development of the staff.  Consultants and trainers are regularly brought in from US to accomplish this.

Marketing & Design Innovation:  Moni Minhas creates our own unique bottle molds/drawings, comes up with brand names and design concepts, TV, radio, print and social media ads for all of our products.  No outside marketing agency is used for creation or booking of air time and ad space.  We use Saskatchewan based media outlets including all 4 TV networks (Global, CBC, City TV and CTV), 15 city and rural Radio stations, 2 main City newspapers and other media outlets to air/publish our ads and marketing materials.  All the ads are produced by in-house staff. All the labels, Point of Sales Materials, Posters, Banners, Social Media graphics, sales materials, brochures etc are conceived, designed and produced by our in-house staff.  Level of in-house innovation at Minhas Sask in marketing and design is unprecedented in North America.

Minhas Sask Innovation Lab:  Minhas Sask Innovation lab is led by Moni Minhas, where all the 100+ products we manufacture and market from scratch.  There is no equivalent lab of this type anywhere in North America.  I should point out that no provincial or federal funds have been used in creation or development of this innovation lab or our products.

Community Assistance:  Minhas Sask actively supports the community it does business in.  During Covid, we donated hundreds of thousands of Hand Sanitizer bottles to 100+ non profit organizations, front line workers, police organizations, shelters and many other groups.  We support and donate to all types of non profit, community organizations and community fund raisers and raffles throughout the province - on a weekly basis.

LCBO Permanent Listing:  Last week, we received the great news that our Sask Prairie Dill Pickle Vodka has received a permanent listing from LCBO.  Our product is now available in 250+ LCBO stores throughout Ontario, and in the coming weeks, it will be added to another 300+ stores.  To the best of our knowledge, this is the first permanent listing ever of any alcoholic product made in Saskatchewan.   To further clarify, LCBO does routinely lists products on a temporary basis and stocks them in a select few stores or stocks a handful of cases in their special order central warehouse; however, in all these cases, the products get delisted after a few months based on “lack of sales”.  Getting a permanent listing speaks volumes of the quality, innovation and potential of our products made in Saskatchewan.  Interestingly, we have potential to sell more of our products to other provinces and  countries if the SLGA Craft Alcohol regulations were to be modified to exclude exported volume in the quota and mark-up calculations.  On Sask Prairie Dill Pickle Vodka, we are in effect paying both Ontario and Saskatchewan provincial mark ups for our products we are currently selling to LCBO.

“Made of Saskatchewan”, and “Produced in the Land of Living Skies”:  We do not just use these as marketing slogans, we live them every day.  The theme and designs of all our products highlight the rich and beautiful province of Saskatchewan. Here are examples of some of the hyper-local brand names we produce: Wascana Creek Gin, Sask Prairie Vodka and Whisky, Taylor Field Vodka, Craven RTD’s, Moosejaw Apple-pie Moonshine, Kamsack Brandy and of course, Top 20 Sask Cities Vodka.  Not only this resonates with the people of Saskatchewan, it also resonates with all tourists and visitors to the province, who buy them as souvenirs when visiting the province.