Elmira distillery turns food waste into vodka for fundraiser

A new vodka being offered atMurphy's Law Moonshine Distillery in Elmira was made from 2,000 pounds of food waste.

The end product is 300 jars of Not Wasted Vodka. Each jar is750ml and all the proceeds from the public sale of the drink will support The Food Bank of Waterloo Region.

Ben Murphy, the owner operator of Murphy's Law Distillery, says usingfood waste meant the process took a lot longer than it usually does when they make regular moonshine.

"I haven't used food waste before. But, you can make moonshine from just about anything. Pumpkins, fruit, corn, whatever you want. You just got to get high proof alcohol," Murphy said.

"If we have enough starches to convert them into sugars, then you have the right strain of yeast, you can create byproduct of alcohol and your fermentation. What we could do with that is we could actually boil the alcohol off, condense back down into a liquid and keep rerunning that liquid until we got a very neutral vodka."

Taste test

For the Not Wasted Vodka, he says this was a year long project. But it's something he'd do again.

"We'll change up a bit of the fermentation process for sure next time, separate some things out and we'll hammer it out again," he said.

As for the taste?

"You're going to smell neutral alcohol with a bit of anise so black licorice kind of aroma in the very back end of it," Murphy said. "And then the taste is your typical vodka with a little bit of anise."

A 750ml standard mason jar sells for $67.50 with $40 being donated to The Food Bank of Waterloo Region. As well, people who buy the vodka will get a tax receipt for a portion of the price they pay.