The Anarchists of Rye

Sons of Vancouver is a Canadian micro-distillery producing big, flavourful, genre-busting rye whiskies.

Written By: Charlene Rooke

Sons of Vancouver Distillery owners Max Smith (left), James Lester (middle), and Jenna Diubaldo (right)

Pot distillation is superior to column distillation. Old whisky is better than young. Yeast is just yeast, oak is just oak, and rye is always peppery and spicy.

Imagine this mythical whisky wisdom scribbled on an imaginary scrap of cardboard box… then chucked in the bin by a small craft distillery located in the foggy, forested environs of North Vancouver on Canada’s west coast. “We're thinking outside the box, of a box we built for ourselves,” laughs James Lester, founder of Sons of Vancouver, one of the early micro-distilleries that opened in British Columbia a decade ago.

The original distillery vision was to focus on liqueurs, such as its superior craft amaretto. A more recent pivot to rye whisky has yielded huge honours: 2023 Canadian Whisky of Year and 2025 Rye Whisky of the Year at the Canadian Whisky Awards, as well as gold for its 100 per cent rye at the 2025 Canadian Artisan Spirit Awards.

“We had to figure out: How do you make good whisky with the setup that we have? You have to start by knowing what you want to achieve,” Lester says. You could say that the distillery’s three partners reverse-engineered their success, through a very intentional process of questioning and retooling everything they thought they knew about whisky production—rye whisky, specifically.

“So many [Canadian] distillers want to make single malt, or to make a bourbon-style spirit,” says partner Max Smith, the lead distiller. “But the rye category lacked a star product, and deserved one.”

The award-winning, limited-release Realms of Rye series of 100 per cent rye whiskies, plus an innovative new wheated rye expression, are Sons of Vancouver bottlings crafted for whisky nerds and curious new drinkers alike.

Jenna Diubaldo, a partner and the whisky program manager, explains that much Canadian rye has historically been “a little bit smoothed-out and made sort of generic. We’ve discovered how vast and different the flavours can be, depending on how you treat it.” Even the grain itself—whether from Manitoba, like Diubaldo, or grown in Quebec, British Columbia, or Alberta—tastes and smells different, she says.

The team is refreshingly candid about its methods, believing, as Lester says, that “somebody could replicate our process exactly, and still not come up with the same whisky.” All three partners are blenders with exquisitely well-honed palates, who taste, critique, and meticulously tune each batch, as a team.

To start with, the rye whisky is mashed and fermented in the same vessel—like the best one-pot home cooking is made, building layers of flavour. French saison yeast creates a tropical-fruity signature house style. Very early during a cool fermentation that can last a week or more, what Lester calls a “mini-sour mash” phase is induced, creating even more complexity. A low-and-slow run through a unique, copper-packed column (designed by Lester) yields an unusually high-proof new make. That gets barreled either in new or ex-bourbon oak. “We’re now ordering enough barrels that we can actually be a bit fussy,” says Diubaldo, of selecting, for instance, new 24-month-air-dried American oak vessels.

The team monitors and tastes every barrel, hand-picking spirits with the bold flavours that can define a special release, or the iconic notes to strike in a consistent blend. That might be a burst of the fruity or herbaceous notes in Realms of Rye Release 01 – Citrus & Botanicals. Or a flavour dimension of the Black Forest cake decadence of Release 02 – Dark Fruit & Cacao.

“Everyone knows rye as only being spicy,” says Diubaldo. “We're always looking to have spice and fruit. We love to find barrels with dark minerality, like pencil shavings and graphite. Or vegetal notes. I’d love to create a very floral expression [of rye].”

Finally, Smith explains, “we do very little filtering in our whiskies. Rye is famous for having an oiliness. Since we run our still at a lower temperature, we end up with a really nice palate feel—there’s no need to filter it out.” Chewy is one way they describe the silky, mouth coating texture which can perhaps also be attributed to proofing-down to bottling strength with careful intent.

“Every whisky sings at a specific ABV, and it’s up to us to find it,” Diubaldo says. For instance, the 2023 nation-topping 100 per cent rye Palm Trees and a Tropical Breeze, was bottled at a relatively low 53.5 per cent ABV to enhance its fruity notes.

The constraints of a small distillery honouring time-consuming processes might stifle originality for other producers. But as Lester emphasizes, “if you don't have a box to think outside of, it can be extremely difficult to be creative, because it leads to choice-blindness.”

To balance the daily rhythm of production with the need for fresh ideas, Lester says that “about 20 per cent of what we do is experimental—maybe using a weird yeast, or a different mash bill.” While filling whisky barrels using the team’s carefully tried-and-tested methods is fulfilling, he says “the really exciting stuff is happening in that 20 per cent.” Because the next throwaway, hastily scribbled idea from Sons of Vancouver just might become an award-winning, outside-the-box innovation.