Sheringham Distillery owners Alayne and Jason MacIsaac, second and third from left. The distillery’s Seaside Gin is now available at the LCBO.Sheringham/Supplied
A beach stroll along the southern coast of Vancouver Island inspired Jason and Alayne MacIsaac to make a gin with a scent of sea breeze and evergreen forests. The back label of their Sheringham Seaside Gin, which launched in 2015, explains it offers “a taste of our home, the West Coast of Canada, in a bottle.”
“We use a bit of winged kelp that’s sustainably harvested by a friend of ours, so you get a subtle hint of ocean when you’re smelling and tasting the gin,” says Jason MacIsaac, co-founder and master distiller.
Seaside Gin, which launched this week at LCBO outlets, also includes juniper, rose, lavender, coriander seed, cardamom and lemon, ingredients that were selected after extensive recipe development and batch distillations. A chef turned distiller, MacIsaac explains he was looking to craft a gin with an abundance of flavours and balance that would work as a spirit to sip on ice or mix with tonic or into a more complex cocktail.
Originally run out of a garage on the MacIsaacs’ property in Shirley (known as Sheringham until the 1890s), the Sheringham Distillery operation moved to Sooke before settling in Langford in 2023 to grow the production. While the footprint of the distillery expanded, distillation still takes place in small stills, which MacIsaac says are more labour intensive, but help to maintain the consistency and continuity of the recipe he created.
Seaside Gin remains the flagship brand, thanks to consumer interest and critical accolades including being named best contemporary gin in the world at the 2019 World Gin Awards. Sheringham also produces two other coastal-influenced styles of gin, Beacon and Raincoast, alongside other spirits and liqueurs. The couple also launched Lumette!, which produces a range of non-alcoholic spirit alternatives.
With the product launch at the LCBO, Sheringham now has distribution in its native British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Meanwhile, expansion efforts continue in California and Washington State as well as France, the United Kingdom and Taiwan.
“We’ve been systematically scaling to international distribution,” MasIsaac says. “Our main focus is our backyard, which is all of the provinces of Canada, and then expanding into other territories as well, which is exciting.”
Distillation at Sheringham still takes place in small stills to help maintain consistency and continuity.Supplied
