LOCAL LEADERS
Reece Sims Owner, SIP Spirits
Benromach 10-Year-Old Speyside Single Malt
Victoria-born Reece Sims completed her Bachelor of Commerce with distinction before discovering the drinks industry in 2015 while bartending at Gastown’s famed Irish pub, The Blarney Stone; she had found her calling. Sims travelled extensively studying wine and spirits, gained experience at several Vancouver bars and started a whisky blog. Then she launched SIP Spirits, a boutique agency focused on in-person and online whisky and spirits tastings, industry professionals and brands. She also writes articles about spirits for taste magazine. “It’s great value and a fantastic introduction to the world of peated single malts. It provides an exceptional balance of fruit, maple, nuttiness, spice and smoke. It also serves as a great base in cocktails.”
Scotch Whisky United Kingdom $74.99 74548
Lyndsay O’Rourke Owner & Winemaker, Tightrope Winery Okanagan summer holidays were memorable for Vancouver-born Lyndsay O’Rourke. She’d become aware of the region’s burgeoning wine industry, but it wasn’t until she moved to Whistler that she found a true appreciation for food and wine. In the off-season, the village’s restaurants offered deals on three-course meals, and those meals fed her increasing interest in wine. A decade later, with her husband, Graham O’Rourke, she dove in. The couple studied winemaking at Okanagan College and then at Lincoln University in New Zealand, earning Bachelors of Viticulture and Oenology. Then, she explains, “we bought a 10-acre apple orchard on the Naramata Bench, which we converted to grapes in 2007.” In 2012 they started making sustainably farmed handcrafted wine under the Tightrope Winery label and built the winery in 2014. “It is fruit forward with lemon, crisp apple and pear notes. It’s a real springtime crowd-pleaser that pairs with veggie fajitas or prawns in a lemon butter sauce.”
Tightrope Pinot Gris * BC VQA $23.99 368605
bcliquorstores.com
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