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Fighting Spirit | B.C. liquor, Island Spirits Distillery

Chad Hershler

| May 6, 2009

Image by: Nik West

From left: Grayson, Abdurahman and Kimmerly

Local distilleries are winning fans all across Canada and around the world. But here at home, where Prohibition-era policies still rule, selling B.C.-brewed hooch is proving a tall order.

The building that stands 30 metres from Pete Kimmerly’s house does indeed look more like a cathedral than a high-end gin and vodka distillery.

Nestled amongst the firs and cedars on his Hornby Island acreage, Kimmerly’s “church,” as he calls his Island Spirits Distillery, climbs two storeys high in rustic carriage-house fashion with a swinging barn door and timber flourish. Inside, the pulpit is reserved for five 200-litre bubbling vats of fermenting sugars, a three-metre sweep of a bar and a wildly eccentric display of copper pipes, glass jars and stainless steel.

“We want to bring gin and vodka up to single-malt class,” says Kimmerly, wearing a plaid shirt and blue jeans, as he glides behind the bar to pour the first round of drinks. A couple of years ago, when he and his business partners, winemaker John Grayson and chemist Naz Abdurahman, asked friends to blind taste-test their gin and vodka against some of the world’s top-ranked brands, their product consistently won out.

As an artisan distillery producing no more than 60 bottles of liquor a day, Island Spirits doesn’t keep its still going at all times. This means that, instead of having to filter impurities out of its liquor after the fact (as the large distillation companies do), Island Spirits can let its still run its course, waiting to use the purest alcohol – the “heart” – for its spirits.

In November the partners sent off their first two pallets to Alberta – 360 bottles of gin and 360 bottles of vodka under the Phrog label – through a private distributor and received word that a gin club in Calgary promptly bought out the entire stock at their local liquor store. “I don’t believe we’re going to lose too many customers,” Kimmerly says, with a grin.

But keeping customers isn’t the problem; it’s finding them in the first place. While Alberta – with its privatized liquor distribution and slew of high-end stores selling just its kind of product – has proven friendly to Island Spirits, in B.C. it’s a different story. Prohibition-era policies dating back to the early 1920s have left this province with a complex bureaucracy, whopping taxation and a distributor – the Crown-operated Liquor Distribution Branch (LDB) – that, in Grayson’s words, “has a heritage of complete control.”

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The US is seeing a boom in

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2010-03-08 09:24.

The US is seeing a boom in Micro-Distilleries, mostly because the government has seen the value such ventures bring to the local economies. Hovever in Canada, the licencing process of a microdistillery, as well as fees for such application, are the same as a large commercial distillery. This makes it all but impossible to do, but if you are persistent enough to become a licenced microdistillery, you're stifled on the distribution side. its sad really.

To bad these innovative

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2009-05-07 18:16.

To bad these innovative companies are stifled by archaic federal laws and tax policies. At least they should be allowed to operate on a level playing field with the wine industry in Canada.

So why do the citizens of BC

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2009-05-07 14:17.

So why do the citizens of BC still (excuse the pun) put up with living in the early 20 Century when so many jobs could be created for its citizens? The fact that significant amounts of fruit are wasted that could be turned into hard cash beneficial to the whole economy should surely go against the natural instincts of BC residents respectful of their environment. The fact that other jurisdictions as mentioned in this piece have recognized the opportunities presented by a micro distillery industry and Progressive BC is being left behind must surly be a thorn in the sides of many citizens. Not only are world class products being denied a market because of a government monopoly that is accountable to no one except itself makes matters even worse, but also denies much needed exposure to the Tourist Industry. Also, compared with the freedoms offered the wine industry, the current practices of the LDB and the government are truly discriminatory. Canadian products are unfairly being discriminated against by not even being given the opportunity to let the market place decide on the shelves of liquor stores what the customer actually wants to buy. The fact that there is a bias towards imported products should gall every Canadian, let alone BC residents. Along a similar vein, why are there so many barriers to inter-provincial trade in these products where each jurisdiction ( Province) feels the need to individually test products before considered for sale?It sounds like a case of job protection by a few civil servants, each protecting their turf at the expense of the Country as a whole. This is the 21 Century, with instant communication, not the horse and buggy day of the late 19Th Century Our commercial practices and laws should reflect this fact.