2nd Section
2020
Mercury LEADER The Tofield
THE LAMONT
From football to farming, Kevin Lefsrud’s newest venture has culinary enthusiasts sitting up to take notice Leslie Cholowsky Viking born and raised, Kevin Lefsrud grew up on the family’s centennial farm, where they’ve been for the past 117 years, going on to play football in the CFL for seven seasons, with the Edmonton Eskimos and Montreal Alouettes, and winning three Grey Cups. When his football career ended with two concussions in a five-week period, Lefsrud, who had been farming in the football off season, returned to the farm full time. Lefsrud says, “I lost about a year and a half of memories from that period immediately afterwards,” and says he is losing more memories all the time. Kevin says his wife, Kyla, has helped him to regain his overall health, and helps him every day maintain his mental health today. “She points out what I need, she helps me out more than anything.”
He always enjoyed splitting his time between the farm and football for the challenges each brought. Now his focus between farming and a new family venture producing honey liquor products is helping him keep his brain occupied. Kevin, Kyla, and sister Lynette now operate Section 35 Farm Distillery, with Kevin taking the lead role in production and development. The name of the company is a throwback to their pioneering ancestors who settled in the Viking area in 1903, a tribute to the Lefsrud homestead on Section 35. Lynette says, “Section 35 is very special to me - it is a way for me to be in business with my family and to stay connected to our roots as fourthgeneration Albertans – farmers and business people. “I love that I get to work with my brother and promote Alberta-made products at the same time.” At present the company has two
very popular products: Wildflower is a vodka-like liquor, sitting at 36 per cent alcohol by volume, made only from honey distillate and water, and Bad Teacher, a blend of honey distillate, apple juice, vanilla, brown sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. About five or six years ago, neighbours Mike and Dustin Yaremcio approached him about putting some bee hives on some of his land. “Bees and canola go together, so I agreed immediately,” he says. Rent came in the form of honey, which soon started to pile up. “There’s only so much honey and toast you can eat.” He says it was around that point that he started fooling around with meads and honey wines with Mike and Dustin. “We weren’t very good at that,” he said. An unfortunate byproduct of these products was awful hangovers, too, taste testers reported. The trio started looking at other See LEFSRUD Page 9
Three-time Grey Cup winner and fourth generation farmer in the Viking area, Kevin Lefsrud, along with wife Kyla and sister Lynette, has started Section 35 Farm Distillery.
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