KPU alumna appears as first Canadian contestant on distiller reality T.V. show

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Kwantlen Polytechnic University brewing and brewery operations diploma graduate Kristine Hui appeared as the first Canadian contestant on an episode of the reality T.V. show Moonshiners: Master Distillers.

The episode “Tea Party Rebellion” aired on Discovery last month and featured three contestants competing to make the best spirits using “backwoods” techniques and receive the title of master distiller. 

Hui was approached to audition for the show in 2021 after being found through her active social media presence on YouTube and Instagram under the name “Miss Brewbird” where she posts content on brewing and distilling. 

After initially thinking it was a scam, Hui vetted the media company and decided to go for it. However, she did not make it on to the season she auditioned for. 

“I kind of forgot about it after that,” Hui says. 

“Then a year later, I received a phone call out of the blue, asking if I was still interested in taking part in Master Distiller. I said yes, so I had about 10 days or so to prepare to be a contestant on the show, and I flew down to Tennessee.”

Hui graduated from the KPU brewing program in 2019 and since then her career has taken her to working in the United Kingdom, teaching workshops through city partnerships in the Greater Vancouver area, and being awarded a $5,000 grant to work on her own fermented beverage using food waste.

She attributes the foundation of her skills and success of her career thus far to her time at KPU. 

“It’s been quite a journey for me, and I really credit my success to the KPU brewing program, helping to start me down this path of fermenting, brewing, and distilling,” Hui says. 

However, the skills learned in the scientific professional settings of her employers and the KPU brewing program were of little help in the competition when it came to crafting the best “backwoods” creations, and led to her bringing a more difficult to use product, barley, for the show. 

“When I tried to apply those … same techniques that I learned in brewing, it wasn’t very beneficial because the things that you do in a professional setting they take a lot of time to do. And when you’re on the show, everything is [on] a very small time limit,” Hui says. 

While Hui didn’t win, she had fun and learned a lot from her time on the show. 

Some of the more surprising revelations included watching her fellow contestant use a “coon peen” to help collect the distillate, and needing to “read the bead” to measure the alcohol by volume content just by watching how quickly air bubbles disappear when the liquid is shaken. 

While Hui has not watched the episode herself, the experience of being on a reality T.V. show was a unique one that very few get to be part of, and one she will never forget.

“It’s a bit nerve wracking, the whole time in your head, [you’re thinking] this is going to be on T.V. Every mistake that I’m making is being captured for all time, I hope it doesn’t make it on to the final cut,” Hui says. 

“When we’re watching T.V., you just see a few people in front of the screen. But when you’re there filming it, you can see all the people that are behind the camera, and there’s a lot of people there staring at you … that also just adds to the nerves.”

Moonshiners: Master Distiller can be streamed on Discovery+ and Apple TV.