Top 10 Distilleries in British Columbia
British Columbia did something no other Canadian province had done: in 2013 it created a craft-distillery licence that required spirits to be made entirely from BC-grown agricultural products, fermented and distilled on site. That single piece of legislation lit a fuse. Within a few years the province went from a handful of distilleries to well over a hundred, all built on the farm-to-flask principle — local barley, Okanagan fruit, island botanicals and glacial water. Crucially, the licence also allowed certified craft distillers to sell directly from their own tasting rooms and skip part of the provincial liquor markup, giving small producers a viable path to market that did not depend on the government monopoly. The result is one of North America's most credible craft scenes, spanning the rainforests of Vancouver Island, the city of Vancouver, the wine-country Okanagan and the mountain interior. These ten distilleries map the province.
1. Shelter Point Distillery, Oyster River (Vancouver Island)
Shelter Point, on a working farm on the east coast of Vancouver Island, is one of Canada's most respected single malt whisky distilleries. It grows its own barley on the seaside farm, malts and distils on site, and ages the whisky in a coastal warehouse battered by Pacific weather. The farm lies near Campbell River on the Oyster River delta, looking across the Strait of Georgia to the snow-capped Coast Mountains, and the briny Pacific air that works through the warehouse is often credited with the whisky's gentle coastal character. The result is a true estate single malt with a clear sense of its island origin, made start to finish on the same patch of land.
2. Victoria Distillers, Sidney (Vancouver Island)
Victoria Distillers, one of BC's oldest craft operations, makes the famous Empress 1908 Gin — coloured a deep indigo by butterfly pea blossom, turning pink when tonic is added. The pH-sensitive butterfly pea blossom shifts the gin from deep indigo to soft pink the moment an acidic mixer is added, a piece of cocktail theatre that turned the bottle into a worldwide hit. The colour-changing gin became a global sensation, and the waterfront distillery at Sidney, just north of Victoria on the Saanich Peninsula, is a popular tasting destination on the island.
3. Long Table Distillery, Vancouver
Long Table, in Vancouver's Yaletown, was the city's first micro-distillery, opening after the 2013 law. It specialises in gin — its Bourbon Barrel Aged Gin and Cucumber Gin are signatures — and its small downtown tasting room helped kick off Vancouver's urban craft-distilling boom. Yaletown, a district of converted brick warehouses on the edge of False Creek, made an apt home for a distillery that wanted to put its still and bar in the heart of the city rather than out on a farm.
4. Odd Society Spirits, Vancouver
Odd Society, in East Vancouver, makes single malt whisky, gin, vermouth and fruit spirits, fermenting and distilling everything in house. Its Wallflower gin and its Commodore whisky built a strong local following, and the distillery and cocktail bar became a fixture of the city's craft-drink culture. Few small distilleries attempt the full spread of whisky, gin and aromatised wines under one roof, and Odd Society's willingness to make its own vermouth from a base of estate spirit gave Vancouver bartenders a genuinely local martini.
5. Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery, Vernon & Kelowna (Okanagan)
Okanagan Spirits, founded in 2004 in the Okanagan wine and fruit valley, is one of BC's pioneering distilleries. Using local fruit from the valley's orchards, it makes award-winning fruit brandies (eaux-de-vie), absinthe, whisky and gin. The Okanagan is a long, dry valley strung along a chain of lakes, its hot summers and sandy benchlands producing cherries, apricots, plums and apples as well as the grapes that feed BC's wine industry — and that abundance of fruit is exactly what a continental eau-de-vie tradition needs. Its locations in Vernon and Kelowna sit at the heart of Canada's most important fruit-growing region.
6. Sons of Vancouver Distillery, North Vancouver
Sons of Vancouver, in North Vancouver, became known for its No. 82 Amaretto — a rare Canadian craft amaretto — alongside vodka and other spirits. The small, irreverent operation reflects the experimental spirit of the BC scene and its willingness to make categories the big producers ignore.
7. Pemberton Distillery, Pemberton (Sea-to-Sky)
Pemberton Distillery, in the mountain valley north of Whistler, distils organic spirits from locally grown Pemberton potatoes and grain. Its organic vodka, gin and single malt whisky, made with glacial mountain water, reflect the pristine Sea-to-Sky setting and the farm-to-flask ethos at its purest. The Pemberton valley, ringed by glaciated peaks an hour north of Whistler, has long been seed-potato country thanks to its clean, isolated growing conditions, making potato a natural and very local base for the distillery's spirits.
8. Wayward Distillation House, Courtenay (Vancouver Island)
Wayward, on Vancouver Island, takes an unusual approach: it bases all its spirits on 100 percent BC honey rather than grain. Its Unruly vodka and gin and its Krupnik honey spirit make Wayward one of the most distinctive distilleries in the country and a showcase for the province's agricultural diversity.
9. Dubh Glas Distillery, Oliver (South Okanagan)
The Dubh Glas Distillery, in the desert-like south Okanagan near Oliver, focuses on single malt whisky in the Scottish tradition, made in BC's warmest, driest climate. Around Oliver and Osoyoos the valley shades into Canada's only true semi-desert, with sagebrush, cactus and some of the hottest summer temperatures in the country, conditions that drive an unusually fast, fruity maturation. Its Virgin Spirits and Noteworthy single malt reflect a deliberate, small-scale approach to whisky in this unexpected near-desert setting.
10. Sheringham Distillery, Sooke (Vancouver Island)
Sheringham, on the wild west coast of Vancouver Island near Sooke, makes the acclaimed Seaside Gin, flavoured with hand-harvested winged kelp from the local shoreline. Its coastal, ocean-influenced spirits won major international awards and capped the rise of BC island distilling.
British Columbia in context
No province did more to define modern Canadian craft distilling than BC, and it did so through policy: the 2013 farm-to-flask law forced distillers to root their spirits in local agriculture, and the constraint became the scene's greatest strength. The barley of Vancouver Island, the fruit of the Okanagan, the honey of the coast and the kelp of the shoreline all end up in the bottle. From Empress gin's indigo colour to Shelter Point's seaside single malt, BC offers a distilling tour as varied as its landscapes — rainforest, desert, mountain and coast.
Explore on the map
Use the interactive map to plan a British Columbia distillery route, from Vancouver Island's seaside single malt and seaside gin across to Vancouver's urban distilleries and inland to the Okanagan fruit valley. Open the map to see how the distilleries follow the coast and the valleys, and find British Columbia on the map to build a trip that links whisky, gin and fruit brandy across the province.