Distiller’s Perspective: Black Fox Grows Its Flavor on the Farm

The city of Saskatoon is home to about 273,000 people in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It’s surrounded in all directions by rich farmland. Agriculture is such a fundamental part of Saskatoon’s economy and culture that the University of Saskatchewan has a research farm within its city limits. Saskatonians appreciate the fruits of the land.

Barb Stefanyshyn-Cote and John Cote knew that making something tied to the land and sold directly by them would resonate with local consumers in Saskatoon. A distillery was something of a leap for the married couple—both of them professional agrologists, they owned a farm farther north. As professionals who had worked with other farmers and seen farming around the world, they were attuned to agriculture as a business. They knew that for their own business to survive, they either had to get much larger or do something completely different.

So, they did something that many consider sacrilege: They sold the family farm.