Patrick Evans is a farmer through and through. For proof, there’s the firm handshake, the well-worn boots, and the tireless work ethic half hidden behind a self-deprecating sense of humour. There are also the local roots — Evans was born and raised on a dairy farm not 20 kilometres from his current farm.
But it isn’t dairy cows that Evans is nurturing today. It’s whisky. And not just any whisky at that. Evans is the proud — if slightly nervous — owner and operator of Western Canada’s only single malt distillery, Shelter Point on Vacouver Island.
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The nervousness is justified. Evans and his wife Kimm have invested a lot in this dream. After three years of planning, and then a year or two of jumping through government hoops and miles of red tape, plus hundreds of hours of back-breaking and wallet-draining building, they finally have their spectacularly beautiful, tourist-focused distillery chugging into production.
But they’re not home free yet. Yes, whisky finally hit barrels in July last year, but it needs to age for a minimum of three years before it can be bottled and sold.
Evans is sure about his strategic direction, though. He’s confident that value added is where opportunity lies for the future of agriculture.
Now, if only he and Kimm can hold out the next three years before money starts rolling in, they’ll be in on the start of something big.
Located midway up B.C.’s picturesque Vancouver Island, Shelter Point Distillery hunkers right against the ocean, buffeted by a stiff breeze on this cold, pre-winter day. It’s the smell that first draws you in. Warm and golden, smoky and sharp edged, Shelter Point steeps in the unmistakable aroma of whisky: the perfect antidote to the swirling snowflakes.
There’s not a lot of dainty at Shelter Point. After all, whisky is the ultimate man’s drink (about 80 per cent of all whisky is consumed by men). Inside heavy custom doors, rough-hewn cedar timbers, rich leather armchairs, and slate-coloured fireplaces are designed to impress. And that’s just the lobby. Beyond is the tourist-friendly distilling room, with giant copper distilling pots taking centre stage, though Evans says the Harley parked in the corner draws almost as much attention.
The rustic class and the West Coast warmth are entirely intentional. Evans knows ambiance, and he knows “feel” makes a big difference when it comes to convincing tourists to buy into the experience with their hearts and their wallets.
“We could have done this in a barn for a quarter of the price,” Evans tells me, “but we wanted to invest in the warm fuzzies because we think agri-tourism is a key part of what will make us successful. That, and we really believe in investing in the region.”
Shelter Point grew out of Evans’ fundamental belief that innovation, combined with sustainability and environmental responsibility, is agriculture’s future.
“I’ve always been pushing. We have all this unused land, let’s increase the value-added sector. But the question is how? We don’t have the heat units like the Okanagan (in British Columbia); we don’t have vast tracts of land like the Prairies. What can we do to make the highest value add? The answer, for me at least, is a distillery.
“If you go some places in Scotland where they have distilleries, they’re in some of the least likely places. Scotland is 30,000 square miles, and they export $7 billion worth of scotch a year. Vancouver Island is 12,000 square miles. Why can’t we add that kind of value on our land?”
There’s no room for protectionist thinking in Evans’ view of the future. In fact, he’s not just unconcerned about competitors, he actively welcomes them.
“We are one distillery on Vancouver Island. Ten would make us a destination, 20 would make this an industry,” says Evans. “Even 10 would be brilliant. Farmers need each other.”
It’s not just farmers who need farmers. Communities need this kind of innovative, value-added agriculture as well. The man-hours and predominantly locally sourced building materials that went into creating the facility helped support a chronically underemployed valley. And building up the region’s tourism industry now that the fishing and lumber industries are mostly gone will make a difference looking forward.
“What we’ve spent on this building, we’ve plowed it all right into our community. Maybe we don’t need big mills, maybe we need big distilleries,” says Evans.
While creating Shelter Point has taken a ton of work and a fine measure of perseverance, there’s been luck in the equation too. Mike Nicholson, Master Distiller for 30 years at some of Scotland’s finest distilleries, happened to marry a Canadian and subsequently (semi)-retired down island in Victoria, B.C. Evans retains him on a contract basis to teach James Marinus, Evans’ right-hand man through 23 years of farming, the fine art of distilling.
“What Mike would tell us is, ‘Well, you haven’t made anything that smells bad. You haven’t made shyte.’ That’s Mike saying a compliment,” says Marinus with an appreciative laugh.
Adds Evans, “We got lucky getting Mike on board, and we’ll keep him as long as he’s willing.”
To date, Shelter Point has about 200 filled casks aging, and Evans anticipates building that number to about 600 by the spring. But, it’s hard to know what the final product will be like, given that whisky derives 100 per cent of its colour and about 75 per cent of its flavour from the barrels it ages in — single-use bourbon barrels in Shelter Point’s case.
“Off the still at 70 per cent alcohol, it’s great moonshine,” says Marinus. “It’s nice, complex, fruity. But, how that will come off in three years or five or 10, we don’t know. We hope — no, we believe, it’ll be really good.”
For a process as old as the making of whisky (which was first recorded back in the mid-1400s), today’s high-tech equipment allows a surprising amount of control over the final product. Evans, Marinus and Nicholson are experimenting with a variety of processes and ingredients — including homegrown barley — and each tweak will put a slightly different spin on the final flavour.
Already they’ve been planting 200 acres behind the distillery to Metcalfe and Copeland varieties of barley. Though Vancouver Island might not be a grain farmer’s most obvious choice, Evans reports that the cooler summer weather and 12-plus feet of drainage make for ideal growing conditions.
At 1,000 acres in total (including a mile of incredible oceanfront), the farm has more than enough land to handle the growing requirements of the distillery into the future. In fact, points out Evans, the woods to the side of the distillery are slated to go into barley production when Shelter Point steps up production and needs more acres.
That said, quality reigns supreme over quantity here, and this artisan distillery has no plans of going large scale.
Nor should you expect Shelter Point’s product to taste like other single malt whisky you’ve tried. “I would hope that we’re as good as scotch, but we don’t want to be the same. We’re a traditional single malt distillery with a Canadian flare,” says Marinus. “The salt water from the ocean right beside us will give our product a different flavour profile. So will our homegrown malting barley.”
To date, Evans’ most frustrating stumbling block has been political, not operational. “The biggest challenge anyone in the alcohol industry has is the monopoly of the LDB (B.C.’s government-controlled Liquor Distribution Branch). If we sell whisky out of our own building, say for $40, we have to ship all $40 to LDB and they send us back the profit. The markup that they have for alcohol is 170 per cent, which doesn’t leave us a lot of margin to play in,” he explains. “It would be really sad if we had to exclude B.C. from our market and instead just sell to the rest of Canada and Asia. The LDB’s rules make B.C. a very tough market to get into.”
To say Evans is making money would be a stretch. His current aim is to sell 10 per cent of his casks in advance of bottling to finance ongoing operations. Groups are welcome to make a joint purchase. If 20 people buy in, the cost is reduced to $250 per person. Bought as a cask, the liquor translates to about $30 per bottle — relatively cheap in the world of whisky. Given that Marinus anticipates pushing $90 per bottle once the whisky has aged for a decade, today’s $30-per-bottle price tag might even be seen as an investment.
While Shelter Point hasn’t reached the magic 10 per cent, they’re doing well to date and expect that, as their reputation grows, they’ll enjoy more tourist interest and sales. “We’re working on a long-term economic perspective,” Evans says. “The short term sucks. But that’s the way it always is in agriculture, isn’t it?”
“We’ve built it. Now we need the people to come. We need people to take part in the inaugural West Coast whisky adventure.”
He’s expecting to be here for the long term. “I put on a copper roof. It’ll last 400 years,” he says with a confident smile. CG
