Shane Masters and Marie-Pier Racine run Angel’s Share Cocktail Co., one of the many small businesses making use of the community centre’s commercial kitchen. Together they invent, create, and distribute cocktail mixes.
Shane has worked in various restaurants in the past and enjoys coming up with new and inventive flavours like Angelica’s Last Word, a mix with a flavour profile of celery, toasted black peppercorn, and lime. Store-bought mixes just weren’t cutting it for the couple, so they decided to try their hand at making their own. At parties, they would mix so many drinks that eventually they had to start creating the mixes beforehand. It was at that point they started to think about turning it into a business.
Photo by Janelle Fournier Photography
Unlike traditional store-bought mixes, they use fresh ingredients, don’t use preservatives or stabilizers, juice their limes and lemons by hand, and make the syrups. They try to stay away from flavours readily available in the store and put their own original twist on things.
They started their journey making 50 bottles at a time and now can make 400 in an 8-hour run.
Part of scaling up was finding a space to create, so they turned to the Manitoba Agriculture website’s list of rentable commercial kitchens. The Riverview Community Centre’s kitchen was close by and fit what they needed, and they’ve been working here ever since.
It’s now been about a year since they officially launched. On their site, you’ll find about 30 flavours, rotating seasonally through a selection of roughly 50.
Marie-Pier’s favourite part of the process is product development. She says coming up with the recipe can take a month or more, then they speak to the health inspector, who may need to test it, which can take upwards of 6 months.
As a business that started during the pandemic, they’ve only experienced sales during the shut-down, but it’s been Shane’s favourite part so far, and he says they get a lot of repeat customers.
Most sales have been made through their website, but they’ve also been able to attend markets like Third+Bird, Pineridge Hollow, and South Osborne Farmers’ Market when restrictions have eased. They ship Canada-wide and have also had orders from neighbouring provinces.
Explore exciting new flavours on their website, Facebook, or Instagram.
Photo by Janelle Fournier Photography