business planning and branding to sales
and distribution.
“To be honest with you, making alcohol
is the easy part, and that’s what surprises
people. The hard part is making a
product that people want to buy. So, we
spend an equal amount of time on those
two things,” Lester said.
“I would like people to know what they
are going to make, how they are going to
make it, and who they are going to sell it to
when they leave the school.”
The Distillery School charges $2,999
for the course and each class is comprised
of no more than three people. Lester notes
the idea for the school was born out of his
own distilling-course experience, which he
describes as sitting in a classroom with lots
other people watching PowerPoint slides –
something that didn’t really equip him to
open up a distillery.
At The Distillery School, students work
alongside the distillers, doing what they
do every day – milling, mashing, distilling,
tasting, bottling and labelling, as well
as cleaning.
“There’s either two or three of us here
at any given time,” said Lester. “It’s very
hands on, and there’s always somebody
around to answer a question.”
Lester notes there is some flexibility
in the school’s curriculum due to the small
class size.
He says most people opening up artisan
distilleries these days aim to make vodka or
gin, so Sons of Vancouver will typically time
each course to coincide with weekly runs
of either those two spirits to accommodate
The Distillery School students.
“We’ve also had students who have
asked to be here while we’re making whiskey,
so we’ve penciled that in,” Lester said.
Fellow entrepreneur Alex Hamer,
founder of the BC Distilled spirits festival
as well as Canadian Artisan Spirits
EDUCAT I O N
“We learned everything we know from other people who’ve
done this. The distilling course is something that we offer almost
as our way of fostering the industry and building it up.”
– James Lester, The Distillery School
14 § POURED CANADA § www.poured.ca
/www.poured.ca
