Newlyweds with a newborn start new craft distillery in St. Albert

For Andrea and David Scade, starting a new business as newlyweds with a newborn has definitely been a challenge.

But as of last week, their businessBlack Diamond Distilleryis licensed to sell their homemade vodka and whiskey.

The distillery, the first based out of St. Albert, has been a work in progress since 2014, even before Andrea and David met.

David Scade first took an interest in distilling from the TV show Moonshiners, a behind-the-scenes look at people in the southern U.S. who illegally make spirits.

That got the ball rolling.

"A couple of friends of mine had homemade stills at home and we got talking about it over wings," hetold CBC's Radio Active Thursday. "I borrowed one of their stills to try it out."

He'd already started making his own spirits by the time he metAndrea, who helped zero in on certain flavours to develop.

Black Diamond Distillery focuses on making small batches of their spirits, which means new flavours will be continuously introduced. For their opening, they have five flavours of alcohol for sale, including apple pie, hot chilli, earl grey, tart cherry and coffee.

They also hope to have a small batch of handcrafted gin in the spring.

The Scades try to find ingredients locally as much as possible, shipping in B.C. apples for their apple pie liqueur and tart cherry juice from Saskatchewan for their tart cherry vodka. The coffee beans they use are roasted in Edmonton.

David Scadeis originally from Edmonton but set up shop in St. Albert after finding a space they liked best there.

"The process of actually finding a location was one of the most time-consuming processes," his wifesaid.

They found a 1,400-square-foot spot on Renault Crescent, just north of the Enjoy Centre.

The Scades are planning on taking the business slow, selling from their business and at certain farmers' markets in the Edmonton area. Black Diamond will sell at the 124 Grand Market in the summer, as well as Edmonton's downtown market. Theyalso have product in two liquor stores so far, one in Sherwood Park and one in Wabamun.

That's all they've committed to so far, considering how small their operation currently is.

"We're just going to see where it goes from there," Andrea Scade said.