First Look: The Dubh Glas Distillery, Oliver BC

Stevely shares his masonry skills

The province offers two levels of distillery licenses: craft distillers have volumes capped at 25,000L per year, with commercial production as the second option. Stevely went the craft route, which has a few restrictions but offers unique benefits. “As a craft distiller, I’m restricted to buying barley grown in BC,” he explains, “but I can sell directly to retailers and restaurants.” This means The Dubh Glas can move and sell product without going through provincial liquor distribution. Commercial distillers are required to sell through the BCLDB, but can access what’s known as “neutral” grains at a significantly reduced price. “Canadians grow a lot of barley, just not in BC,” says Stevely. He buys from a grower in Armstrong.

A barley cask whisky will be their premiere product, but because the time to market is lengthy (a new-world whisky can take between three and six years to mature), Stevely is working on a recipe for gin and also has plans for spirits made from locally grown fruit. “We can use the cosmetically damaged fruit instead of it going to the landfill.”

The author tries her hand at masonry – with guidance

At The Dubh Glas, an undercurrent of education runs through everything. In less than two hours, Stevely explained the differences between scotch and whisky (scotch is whisky made in Scotland, but they still call it whisky), shared details on how newer distillation equipment provides multiple filtering to help allow for shorter ageing times (six years instead of 12-18), and enthused about whisky blender John Glaser and his penchant for experimentation (like putting French oak heads on American barrels). It’s a roller coaster of information delivered in language that’s easy to understand. “I do educational tastings all the time right now,” says Stevely. “I’m not doing it for myself. It’s for the whole industry.”

As it will be some time before the first whisky flows from a Dubh Glas bottle, the distillery is offering cask futures: customers can pre-buy whisky through purchasing half the contents of a 100L barrel. “It’s one of the ways we can be creative with sales,” says Stevely. A cask future runs $2,000 for 50L of whisky-in-the-making, with the rest of the barrel remaining the property of Dubh Glas. “This way you know we’re still invested in the outcome of that barrel.” At the end of maturation, buyers take home 44 bottles of custom-labeled whisky. The cost: $45 for a bottle that would retail for $69. The practice isn’t uncommon in wine regions like Bordeaux, where futures are sold well in advance of the vintage release.

From grapes to grains, the Okanagan grows more spirited each year.

We duck out of the morning sunshine to look at the raw space that will house the distillation equipment and a small tasting room, sipping a 62.1% alcohol, cask strength whisky from India in a room with high ceilings and large windows. The intention at The Dubh Glas is to create an experience and product that doesn’t reincarnate a traditional Scottish distillery, but something that captures our authentic Canadian-ism. The space is flooded with natural light and dispels any preconceptions of a dark cellar; concrete floors meet wood, glass, and rock in a contemporary look that feels at home under a cluster of Ponderosa pine trees.

The rock masonry on the front of the building is not yet finished, and before I leave, I’m invited to try my hand at stonework; after all, there’s still something left to learn here. Stevely mixes a batch of mortar while I find a suitable rock. “I’ll show you how, then you can do it yourself,” he says. I follow his instructions, and when my rock begins to slip we wedge a small chip beneath it until the mortar cures. I leave without having tasted a drop of Dubh Glas spirits, yet I’m already eager to return. This experience is very Stevely, and most definitely Canadian.

Dubh Glas Distillery
Address: 8486 Gallagher Lake Frontage Road, Oliver
Phone: 250-486-7529
Twitter: @DubhGlasD