Female Spirit: B.C.’s Women Distillers

As a trained distiller myself, I know what hard work it is to run a distillery. And though there are dozens of women instrumental to the success of B.C. craft distilleries, only two of them are female distillers. For International Women’s Day 2020, I talked to them (and one more pioneer) to find out why.

Dayman-Langen Photography photo of Shelly Heppner from The Alchemist.

Author: Charlene Rooke

Charlene Rooke is a Canadian drinks journalist, consultant and educator as well as a travel, food, business and lifestyle writer. She is a WSET Spirits Educator Certified in Spirits (to Level 3) and WSET Certified in Wine, an SWE Certified Specialist of Spirits, an SMWS spirits educator and an artisan distiller trained at Moonshine University in Louisville, KY. She is the lead judge of the Canadian Artisan Spirits Competition and an expert on B.C. spirits who leads distillery tours and guides spirits tastings in B.C. A former editor at many Canadian publications and former creative lead at three content agencies, she is currently the Drinks Editor for Food & Drink, the in-store magazine of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.