Rebekah Crowley, owner/distiller, walks us through the steps to create their signature spirits. By Catherine Dunwoody As one of the numerous Metro-Vancouver-based craft distilleries participating in the BC Distilled Festival, Roots and Wings Distillery is the first of its kind in the Fraser Valley. I chatted with Rebekah Crowley about the process of making their small batch artisan spirits. Proud of their farm-to-table approach and ingredients grown right on their farm, Crowley and partner Head Distiller Rob Rindt have created over forty unique and flavorful spirits in their six years in business. “Every Saturday we start a new batch, be it vodka or whiskey base, they all begin the same way,” says Crowley. “We take the potatoes (for vodka) and corn or rye and corn (for whiskey) and add it into our 500-gallon mash still. Then we heat it with a mix of water and enzymes until it reaches 90…
By Kathy Mak The local craft spirit movement has been gaining momentum for the past five years in Greater Vancouver thanks to a burgeoning breed of small-format distilleries that produce atypical products for a thriving cocktail community. Nowhere is that truer than at the Sons of Vancouver Distillery, based on Vancouver’s North Shore. This self-proclaimed really, really small batch distillery has won over fans and followers with their grassroots energy and well-crafted roster of artisan products – a vodka, a chili-infused vodka and an amaretto liqueur. The dynamic duo behind Sons of Vancouver are James Lester and Richard Klaus who met during trade school. They are part of a breed of new artisan distillers shaping the craft cocktail landscape in British Columbia. These two enterprising friends and business partners are not ones to chase conventional dreams. When they started their adventure as one of a few local early-adopters in craft…