The Peninsula News Review came out to McTavish Road this month to tell a story we do not tell about ourselves often enough: one hundred years of the same family on the same piece of North Saanich ground, and the whisky we made to mark it.
Peninsula distillery celebrates a century of family on the farm with traditional whisky
A century on the same four acres
“1927 is the year my great-grandfather moved the family up from California to the Saanich Peninsula onto our property,” co-owner Cory Hastings told the paper.
What he moved onto was a working dairy farm, one that shipped its milk to the Hudson’s Bay Company. A century of subdivision has since taken the property down to four acres. Those four acres are where our grain goes in, where the barrels sit, and where the bottles come out.
What is actually in the bottle
The 1927 Centennial Edition is a small-batch, bourbon-style whisky made the way a bourbon is made: British Columbia–grown corn, locally malted barley, distilled and aged on site in custom American Standard Barrels. Caramel, vanilla and toasted oak lead; honey and dried fruit sit underneath.
“A bourbon in every way except for its place of origin.”
Whisky curator Adam Bradshaw, quoted in the Peninsula News Review
That distinction matters to us. The word bourbon belongs to the United States, so we do not use it as a claim. The mashbill, the new charred oak, the barrel construction and the patience are all the same. Only the address is different, and the address is the whole point of this particular bottle.
Raise a glass to the hundred
The 1927 Centennial Edition is available at the farm on McTavish Road and online while the release lasts.
Shop the 1927 Centennial Edition
Coverage by Christine van Reeuwyk for the Peninsula News Review, published August 18, 2026. Quotes and reporting are the newspaper’s; please read the original article for the full piece.