Langford has a new distillery in town and the space doubles as the city’s first craft cocktail bar.
Ryes & Shine Distillery has been a year in the works and is finally open to serve craft cocktails, food and offer tastings of spirits made in-house.
The distillery moved into the space formerly occupied by Millstream Beverage Company, which vacated the location last year.
When Ryes & Shine moved in last September, they were faced with an extensive renovation to transform the brewery into a distillery.
They also renovated the front of house during this time, turning the barroom into a proper lounge space and adding a second bathroom.
Ryes & Shine obtained their manufacturing license in March and quickly got to work on their flagship products—an apple pie spirit, a vodka and two types of gin.
Then, the last piece of the puzzle came for Ryes & Shine when they got fully licensed in June and were able to open fully to the public.
The distillery is primarily co-owned by Kelly Darwin and his wife Alicia Campbell, who both have extensive backgrounds in culinary arts and running kitchens.
“Our intention was to start something small and maybe sell at farmers markets and things like that,” Darwin told Victoria Buzz.
“What happened was, we wanted to stay in the West Shore, we wanted to be in Langford specifically, but we couldn’t find anything that was suitable as far as commercial space so we opened it up to the West Shore and this space came about.”
He said that the space was a bit bigger than they were hoping for, but perfect nonetheless, so they “jumped in with both feet,” and acquired the space they are in now.
For the tasting room, Darwin says he wanted to emulate the many cocktail bars of downtown Victoria, bringing the same quality of drinks to his community in Langford.
To do this, he hopped at the opportunity to hire the former bar manager of the now-defunct Little Jumbo, who has put together a list of house cocktails that show off what Ryes & Shine’s spirits have to offer.
“He’s created a menu that’s super innovative and really designed to showcase the spirits that we make here on site,” Darwin explained.
He added that the drink menu is set to change with the seasons to keep it fresh and explore new ideas.
One of the standout cocktails on the menu so far that Darwin says has been selling extremely well on hot days is the ‘Strawberry Moonshine Slushie.’
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For whisky fans, Darwin says that they are already barreling a whisky that has been made with all Canadian ingredients, but aged in American oak, making the product an authentic Canadian bourbon.
Although, this bourbon won’t be ready for around another two years.
“We’re using an aging method that involves using smaller barrels,” he said.
“The smaller barrels give a wider surface area to the alcohol, so it actually ages more quickly. So we might have an unaged whisky in about a year.”
Additionally, they are experimenting in the distillery to make spirits specifically for the vision of the bar manager.
“One of those is the bacon moonshine that we’ve been making that was made specifically so the bar can do a bacon washed cocktail,” explained Darwin.
So far, Darwin says that Ryes & Shine has been received extremely well by the community.
“We’ve had lots of positive feedback, people saying they’ve waited for so long to have something like this on the West Shore and people saying it’s nice to have somewhere close to have some drinks and not having to worry about driving into Victoria,” he said.
As for the future, he hopes to see more people and their dogs come out this summer to enjoy the patio, try some food and enjoy a cocktail of two.
Come fall, Darwin says they will be looking into hosting some fun events, with a tiki night and a luau in the works for the future.
It has been a long road to get the space open, but Darwin says he and his partners are excited to see what the future holds.
