Sons of Vancouver

The new rules of tasting rooms

January 12, 2024 No Comments

A top 10 list on how to be a great guest on a distillery tour or tasting-room visit

It pays to remember that a distillery isn’t a bar, it’s a working space with a bar, like this one at Wolfhead Distillery in Ontario. Photo courtesy of Wolfhead Distillery

Distillery tasting rooms are hotspots in any city’s drinking scene. Author Janet Gyenes naturally included some in Vancouver Cocktails (new in October from Cider Mill Press; a Toronto edition is forthcoming). Distillery bars are a different breed: “You’re basically in someone’s workshop… Respect the skill and craft that goes into distilling,” Gyenes says. “Let’s face it: most people don’t know if you’re supposed to swirl spirits like you would with wine, if you should sniff or spit or do something else altogether.”

The Alchemist

Sons of Vancouver is serving spirits from its haunted bar

October 24, 2023 No Comments

The award-winning North Vancouver distillery has a morbid menu of blood-curdling cocktails

Sons of Vancouver bartender Amanda MacMullin, dressed as Lydia from Tim Burton’s ‘Beetlejuice,’ serves a spooky slush in a silver chalice. Nick Laba / North Shore News photo

One local distillery is putting the “boo!” in booze.

Throughout the month of October, Sons of Vancouver is dead set on giving guests chills up their spines, with a cocktail menu so morbid it would make a wicked witch cackle.

Bar Bites

High on rye

June 12, 2023 No Comments

Sons of Vancouver pins the future on whisky

SoV’s winning whisky features tropical notes of banana, pineapple and demerara sugar. Photos courtesy of Sons of Vancouver.

In January, a B.C. craft whisky was named the country’s best for the first time in the 13-year history of the Canadian Whisky Awards. The rye-based Palm Trees & A Tropical Breeze was only the third whisky released by Sons of Vancouver. But it offers an aromatic taste of the future for this North Van distillery better known (until now) for its amaretto and other liqueurs.

Recipes

Between the Sheets

January 26, 2023 No Comments

Thought of as a riff on a Sidecar, this inspired classic is amped up with the use of some higher-ABV craft spirits.

0.75 oz Wayward Distillery Cask Strength Apple Brandy

0.75 oz Wayward Distillery Drunken Hive Rum

0.75 oz Sons of Vancouver Quadruple Sec

0.5 oz lemon juice

Garnish: orange or lemon zest

Recipes

French Connection

January 25, 2023 No Comments

Named after the Gene Hackman film of the same name, this two-ingredient cocktail is easy to make and pairs wonderfully with dessert.

2 oz Maple Leaf Spirits Lady of the Cask brandy

0.75 oz Sons of Vancouver Amaretto

Garnish: lemon zest

Guides

Map: Here are all the craft distilleries, wineries, breweries, and cideries in North Vancouver

June 3, 2022 No Comments

The craft spirits and beer scene is now booming in North Vancouver, particularly in the burgeoning Brewery District in Lower Lonsdale.

The North Shore will forever hold a piece of Canadian brewing history, as West Vancouver holds the distinction as the site of the country’s first ever microbrewery.

Horseshoe Bay Brewery started brewing beer for the nearby Troller Bay Pub in 1982, long before the craft beer boom exploded on the West Coast decades later.

Horseshoe Bay Brewery is no longer pumping out the suds on the North Shore – although it spawned some other B.C. breweries that are still very much alive – but in its place are now a dozen North Vancouver breweries, a number that seemingly rises each year.

Many of those establishments are clustered in the City of North Vancouver’s burgeoning Brewery District, a neighbourhood that now boasts seven breweries within easy walking distance of each other.

The Alchemist

Give Us Five

February 9, 2022 No Comments

A B.C. spirit comes out on top for the fifth consecutive year in the Canadian Artisan Spirit Competition: cheers to DEVINE Distillery’s Ancient Grains, also the Best in Class Young Whisky.

DEVINE Distillery’s Ancient Grains is CASC Spirit of the Year. Photo courtesy of Artisan Distillers Canada

The grains may be ancient, but a globally unique, made-in-B.C. whisky is making modern history: Ancient Grains from DEVINE Distillery in Saanich is the Canadian Artisan Spirit of the Year 2022.

The top-scoring spirit across every category of the national competition, Ancient Grains is also the Best in Class Young Whisky for the third time (so classified because it matures for less than three years, which is the minimum requirement for labelling as “Canadian Whisky”). The whisky was originally created by master distiller Ken Winchester in 2017, using B.C.-grown heritage barley, einkorn, emmer, spelt and kamut, and matured in smaller quarter-casks.

The Alchemist

B.C. Spirits Gift Guide: 2021 Edition

December 2, 2021 No Comments

Start your festive shopping now.

In a holiday season with some international supply-chain blips, shop local—and shop soon!—for B.C. small-batch spirts holiday gifts. Limited-edition and seasonal items sell out fast, so if you happen to miss out this season, get on e-newsletter lists or follow distilleries on social media to watch for the next drop, and be very nice (not naughty) until next year. Many items from last holiday season are bound to be available again, so check out last year’s guide, too.

Spirited Gift Guide

December 16, 2020 No Comments

These gift ideas will warm the hearts and glasses of every cocktail lover on your list

Recipes

Lost Horizon

October 19, 2019 No Comments

Recipe by Gianluigi Bosco, head bartender at MARKET at the Shangri-la Hotel in Vancouver. Lost Horizon, of course, was the book and movie that introduced the world to the magical land of Shangri-la.

• 1.5 oz O5 Time Traveller tea-infused Sons of Vancouver vodka (see note)
• 1 oz semi-clarified fresh orange juice (see note)
• 0.5 oz Citrus Wine (recipe below)
• 0.5 oz Kopan Masala Syrup (recipe below)
• 5 dashes citric acid (available from gourmet shops)
• 1 egg white
• Angostura bitters, for garnish