A pair of local distillers were recently featured on the latest season of Dragons Dens....and they walked away with a deal for $150,000 dollars.

Shacha Elez and Adam Dombowsky run the Smooth 42 Distillery up in Brownlee and have always strived for innovation. Now they've got the support of two of Canada's most successful businesswomen.

Elez talks bout what lead them to audition.

"It's been a lifelong dream of mine to go on the show ever since highschool. We saw a casting call and figured we might as well give it a try. We had just come out with our Cre8 Eco Vodka that I felt was innovative enough to pique their interest."

And pique it did. Five out of the six celebrity investors offered Elez and Dombowsky a deal. Michelle Romanow and Arlene Dickinson especially praised the local entrepreneurs' innovative and eco-friendly product.

"Cre8 Eco Vodka is 90% alcohol, it comes in a one-litre bottle but is only filled to 333 millilitres. That allows you to blend the liquor to whatever strength you want at home with drinking water. This reduces our shipping weight by two-thirds which also means a reduction in carbon emissions for transportation. Another benefit is the fact that 90% alcohol extracts flavours much more effectively. So you can make your own DIY fruit infusion at home." 

Ultimately, Michelle Romanow and Arlene Dickinson paired up to offer a deal for $150,000 dollars for 15% of the local business. Elez says they couldn't be happier at this since those were the Dragons they had their eye on from the beginning.

"They're both marketing geniuses and I always felt that our marketing was one of our weaknesses. There's so much to running a business that has to get done and it seems like that part of it has kind of fallen by the wayside. So I thought that if we could get any sort of mentorship with marketing that would be great. There's plenty of products out there that are not the best quality available but they are just so much better at marketing than everybody else, and they end up selling more. So, the fact that we've spent so much time making such a great product, it should make for an easier job to market it."

All in all, Elez says the trip out to Toronto couldn't have been more successful even if it was a little stressful.

"It was a little nerve-wracking, especially that elevator pitch at the beginning. I think that was the most stressful section of the recording because no one wants to mess up or forget a line. But once we got past that hurdle and we got into the actual discussion, Adam and I were both a little more at ease. We've described our product a million times to customers walking through our doors. And [the Dragons] were all so enthusiastic and positive about the product that it helped put us at ease."

With the help of their new partners, Smooth 42 hopes to now to expand their reach to liquor stores across the country.