Napanee whisky-maker tames the Dragon’s Den

Courtesy of Dragon’s Den

By Mallory Day

BELLEVILLE – A young Napanee entrepreneur is pursuing his dream of building his startup whisky-making business, despite the collapse of an investment deal from the TV show Dragons’ Den.

Cole Miller founded Twelve Barrels Whisky a year ago in Ottawa, where he attends Carleton University. The company’s production is small so far, and Miller’s goal is to expand it so that his whisky is sold at liquor stores across Canada. In a Dragons’ Den segment that was filmed last May and shown Feb. 1, he pitched his plan and asked the Dragons for their support.

Four of the entrepreneurs on the show said they would invest in his company, and he ended up accepting a joint offer from Dragons Jim Treliving and Michael Wekerle. The offer was for $150,000 and 45 per cent of his business. He signed a four-month contract with them, a normal deal on the show. The contract said that he would try to get his whisky on the shelves of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

He was unable to do that within the four months, however, so the deal fell through. Miller is continuing to work with the LCBO.

“What (the Dragons) really wanted, of course, was a deal signed with the LCBO or the (Société des alcools du Québec) or some other retailer like that,” he told QNet News Wednesday. “I’ve still been working with the LCBO for a year – it was just a lot slower than they were expecting … We decided at the end of the four months to just part ways for now.”

Cole Miller is trying to get his Twelve Barrels whisky onto LCBO shelves. Photo courtesy of Twelve Barrels Whisky.

Miller’s first experience in the alcohol business was at age 16, when he made wine that he had to hide from his parents under his bed. He then moved to making beer, and then to whisky.

Making a pitch on Dragon’s Den was a last-minute decision when he heard the show was holding auditions in Ottawa last May.

“I had a name, a story and a good idea, but didn’t actually have a product to show,” said Miller. “We just wanted to make sure we had product ready and looking a little bit more substantial, so we picked our whisky recipe two weeks before we went on air.”

The 21-year-old cognitive science major runs his operation out of a building at Carleton, but says he would like to bring it back to Napanee because that’s where his story is.

Napanee is where Miller started to make alcohol and is also home to the name Twelve Barrels. There used to be a distillery in Napanee run by a man named John Meagher. His son George was a world-champion figure skater and would perform at his father’s distillery by jumping over 12 whisky barrels. Miller said he found this at a museum in Napanee and decided to name his whisky after it.

The label of his whisky features a drawing representing George Meagher.