Ampersand Distilling Company is a family founded craft distillery located on a five acre farm in the Cowichan Valley.
Though trained as engineers, father-son duo Stephen and Jeremy Schacht used their knowledge of science and traditional distilling techniques to create a hand crafted distillery to make hand crafted spirits.
Like the Ampersand, we are all about bringing things together; ingredients & techniques; science & art; tradition & innovation. We make delicious spirits designed to be a staple on your bar.
Ampersand Distilling Co. was born out of Jeremy & Jessi's love of craft cocktails, and Jeremy & Stephen's engineering backgrounds. Bringing together his degree in chemical engineering and his parent's love of farming, the distillery was an innovative way to combine their passions.
Despite being busy with other businesses, Stephen & Ramona moved to the Cowichan Valley in 2007 to start a vegetable farm. Their son Jeremy, fascinated with the technical aspects of distillation, set out to find an innovative way to put his degree in chemical process engineering to use. The distillery is a result of that innovation, leading to a new family business.
The Stills
The stills are the heart of a distillery, and we designed and built ours from scratch. We make our spirits in a 1000L pot still and a 500L packed column still, fondly referred to as Dot & Dash. The column, unlike any other still in the world, is packed with tiny coils for maximum surface area and produces alcohol of nearly 97%. It fractions easily between the heads, hearts, and tails of the spirit run. With our batch distillation process, we remove all impurities for the highest quality and best tasting spirit.
The Tasting Room
Open by appointment only, we are happy to give you a tour and a taste at the distillery tasting room. Sidle up for recipes and stories at the bar, made from a slab of douglas fir from the property and the same type of iron pipes that power our stills. We bring our tasting room to the Duncan Farmers' Market every Saturday, as well as the Oak Bay night market in the summer (second Wednesday of the month June-September).