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Marianne Scott grew up in the Netherlands and came to North America as a teenager. She rediscovered her seafaring roots when she and her husband, David, sailed to Bora Bora and back on their Nigara 35, Starkindred. She lives in Victoria, about 40 feet from the Juan de Fuca Strait, where she writes regularly for Pacific Yachting, Cruising World, Northwest Yachting and other marine publications.
During her time on the West Coast, Scott met a variety of remarkable people whose lives revolve around the sea - racing sailors, scientists, yacht designers, adventurers, boat builders, writers, painters, and eccentrics. She conducted interviews from Tacoma to Bella Bella to create a collection of short biographical portraits, Naturally Salty (Touchwood, 2003). It includes the likes of hermit Bob Stewart, who lives in a tiny floathome on Potts Lagoon; publisher Tom Kincaid, founder of Nor'westing magazine; writer and entrepreneur Charlie White of "how-to" fishing-book fame; shipwreck hunter and Vancouver Maritime Marine Museum director James Delgado; 'hot-vent' biologist Verena Tunnicliffe; Orca specialist Paul Spong; mountaineer Jim Whittaker, the first American to scale Mount Everest before turning blue-water sailor; internationally renowned yacht designers Bob Perry and Ted Brewer; lighthouse-keeper Flo Anderson; author Edith Iglauer of Fishing with John.
Scott also co-wrote a memoir for Vancouver-based luxury yacht builder Ben Vermeulen, Before I Forget...a Memoir (self-published 2015). Vermeulen survived the World War II occupation of the Netherlands and overcame dyslexia to develop mechanical skills, immigrate to Canada and become an award winning entrepreneur by becoming Canada's biggest luxury yacht builder. His is a quintessential rags-to-riches immigrant story.
In 2021, Marianne Scott wrote The Distilleries of Vancouver Island: A Guided Tour of West Coast Craft and Artisan Spirits (TouchWood $25), the first book to showcase the 21 craft and artisan distilleries that have sprung up on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands in recent years, an area described as "one of the most fascinating -- and largely undiscovered -- distilling regions of the world" by Jim Murray, author of the international bestseller Jim Murray's Whisky Bible.
BOOKS
Naturally Salty (TouchWood Editions, 2003) $18.95
Before I Forget...a Memoir (self-published, 2015) 978-0-9948154-0-8
The Distilleries of Vancouver Island: A Guided Tour of West Coast Craft and Artisan Spirits (TouchWood, 2021) $25 9781771513326
[BCBW 2021]
+++
The Distilleries of Vancouver Island: A Guided Tour of West Coast Craft and Artisan Spirits by Marianne Scott (Touchwood $25)
[BCBW 2021] Review by Alexander Varty
Just this weekend I spent a happy hour with Betty and Veronica, hanging out in a warehouse abutting a sheep farm and a brewery just a few short minutes outside of downtown Parksville. Reggie and Archie were there, too, although they stuck demurely to one corner of the space, as if aware that the ladies were and would always be the true stars, sparkling and shining and adorned with copper and crystal.
Now, before you conclude that I’m either a senile fantasist, obsessed with Riverdale cosplay, or have been booked to play Pop Tate in series 7 of the popular TV show, let me explain. Betty and Veronica are the two Chinese-made stills that Shelly Heppner uses to produce her Bespoke Spirits line of vodkas and gins, and they are undeniably gorgeous, standing tall and elegant amid a steampunk array of condensers, boilers, piping, tanks, and gauges. Reggie and Archie are considerably more utilitarian, but gleam with care nonetheless: they’re the two 1000-litre fermenters that handle the first part of the alchemical process of turning grain into a cheering dram.
More to the point is that I willingly spent the first swimmable Saturday of 2021 in a warehouse rather than on the beach, for it’s an indication that Marianne Scott’s The Distilleries of Vancouver Island serves its intended purpose perfectly. In the spirit of previous island guides such as Elizabeth Levinson’s An Edible Journey: Exploring the Island’s Fine Food, Farms, and Vineyards and Don Genova’s Food Artisans of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, it’s designed to help readers plot their own self-guided regional tours, not only alerting them to off-the-beaten-track delights but providing them with the background information necessary to fully understand what they’ll see en route.
Until very recently there would have been very little need for a book of this particular kind. Organic farms, small-scale smoking and canning operations, and even craft breweries have been a part of Vancouver Island life for decades, and in a sense so have artisanal producers of hard liquor. But interview requests would likely have met with the sharp end of a shotgun; the legendary moonshiners of Lasqueti or the Prohibition-era rum chemists of Jordan River were not only flying underneath the government’s radar, but indulging in an activity as legally dubious as heroin importation or the counterfeiter’s trade.
Changes to government regulations at the start of this century have now made small-scale distilling legal, if subject to strict controls, and Scott’s book covers all 21 producers now operating on Vancouver Island, Salt Spring and Hornby. These range from one-woman operations like Heppner’s, the most recent craft distillery to open here but surely not the last, to Saanich’s 23-acre Devine Distillery & Winery, bankrolled by co-owner John Windsor’s successful career as an Ontario property developer. Distilling seems an ideal retirement project for some, like Hornby Island’s Island Spirits Distillery, run by former ferry captain Peter Kimmerly; for others, it’s a natural outgrowth of operating a craft brewery or cidery. Many of the techniques and some of the equipment is in common, and so it’s not been a big leap for Victoria-based Phillips Fermentorium Distilling Company to diversify into whisky and gin, or for Merridale Cidery & Distillery to make various brandies from the same photogenic pommes and pears that surround its Cobble Hill plant.
And if there’s any doubt that Vancouver Island craft distilleries are on the verge of the kind of international recognition that has greeted this province’s wineries, consider the surprising rise of Sooke’s Sheringham Distillery. After only four years in business, owners Jason and Alayne MacIsaac and their team won a “world’s best contemporary gin” award in 2019. It’s a well-deserved honour.
Scott’s straightforward style is effective in conveying the science behind the distilling process, and the stories behind the distilleries themselves. It’s perhaps unfortunate that she doesn’t offer more colourful descriptions of the beverages on offer; The Distilleries of Vancouver Island doesn’t say much about taste or mouthfeel or aroma. But that might be for the best. As Scott notes, “What might be my favourite gin tastes like gasoline to others.”
The thirst this book provokes is more for personal discovery than for expert guidance, and with that in mind I’m already plotting post-COVID field trips to Sheringham, Island Spirits, and several other facilities, including a return visit to Betty and Veronica.
This time I’ll ask about Jughead. 9781771513326
Alexander Varty is a musician and writer living on unceded Snuneymuxw territory
During her time on the West Coast, Scott met a variety of remarkable people whose lives revolve around the sea - racing sailors, scientists, yacht designers, adventurers, boat builders, writers, painters, and eccentrics. She conducted interviews from Tacoma to Bella Bella to create a collection of short biographical portraits, Naturally Salty (Touchwood, 2003). It includes the likes of hermit Bob Stewart, who lives in a tiny floathome on Potts Lagoon; publisher Tom Kincaid, founder of Nor'westing magazine; writer and entrepreneur Charlie White of "how-to" fishing-book fame; shipwreck hunter and Vancouver Maritime Marine Museum director James Delgado; 'hot-vent' biologist Verena Tunnicliffe; Orca specialist Paul Spong; mountaineer Jim Whittaker, the first American to scale Mount Everest before turning blue-water sailor; internationally renowned yacht designers Bob Perry and Ted Brewer; lighthouse-keeper Flo Anderson; author Edith Iglauer of Fishing with John.
Scott also co-wrote a memoir for Vancouver-based luxury yacht builder Ben Vermeulen, Before I Forget...a Memoir (self-published 2015). Vermeulen survived the World War II occupation of the Netherlands and overcame dyslexia to develop mechanical skills, immigrate to Canada and become an award winning entrepreneur by becoming Canada's biggest luxury yacht builder. His is a quintessential rags-to-riches immigrant story.
In 2021, Marianne Scott wrote The Distilleries of Vancouver Island: A Guided Tour of West Coast Craft and Artisan Spirits (TouchWood $25), the first book to showcase the 21 craft and artisan distilleries that have sprung up on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands in recent years, an area described as "one of the most fascinating -- and largely undiscovered -- distilling regions of the world" by Jim Murray, author of the international bestseller Jim Murray's Whisky Bible.
BOOKS
Naturally Salty (TouchWood Editions, 2003) $18.95
Before I Forget...a Memoir (self-published, 2015) 978-0-9948154-0-8
The Distilleries of Vancouver Island: A Guided Tour of West Coast Craft and Artisan Spirits (TouchWood, 2021) $25 9781771513326
[BCBW 2021]
+++
The Distilleries of Vancouver Island: A Guided Tour of West Coast Craft and Artisan Spirits by Marianne Scott (Touchwood $25)
[BCBW 2021] Review by Alexander Varty
Just this weekend I spent a happy hour with Betty and Veronica, hanging out in a warehouse abutting a sheep farm and a brewery just a few short minutes outside of downtown Parksville. Reggie and Archie were there, too, although they stuck demurely to one corner of the space, as if aware that the ladies were and would always be the true stars, sparkling and shining and adorned with copper and crystal.
Now, before you conclude that I’m either a senile fantasist, obsessed with Riverdale cosplay, or have been booked to play Pop Tate in series 7 of the popular TV show, let me explain. Betty and Veronica are the two Chinese-made stills that Shelly Heppner uses to produce her Bespoke Spirits line of vodkas and gins, and they are undeniably gorgeous, standing tall and elegant amid a steampunk array of condensers, boilers, piping, tanks, and gauges. Reggie and Archie are considerably more utilitarian, but gleam with care nonetheless: they’re the two 1000-litre fermenters that handle the first part of the alchemical process of turning grain into a cheering dram.
More to the point is that I willingly spent the first swimmable Saturday of 2021 in a warehouse rather than on the beach, for it’s an indication that Marianne Scott’s The Distilleries of Vancouver Island serves its intended purpose perfectly. In the spirit of previous island guides such as Elizabeth Levinson’s An Edible Journey: Exploring the Island’s Fine Food, Farms, and Vineyards and Don Genova’s Food Artisans of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, it’s designed to help readers plot their own self-guided regional tours, not only alerting them to off-the-beaten-track delights but providing them with the background information necessary to fully understand what they’ll see en route.
Until very recently there would have been very little need for a book of this particular kind. Organic farms, small-scale smoking and canning operations, and even craft breweries have been a part of Vancouver Island life for decades, and in a sense so have artisanal producers of hard liquor. But interview requests would likely have met with the sharp end of a shotgun; the legendary moonshiners of Lasqueti or the Prohibition-era rum chemists of Jordan River were not only flying underneath the government’s radar, but indulging in an activity as legally dubious as heroin importation or the counterfeiter’s trade.
Changes to government regulations at the start of this century have now made small-scale distilling legal, if subject to strict controls, and Scott’s book covers all 21 producers now operating on Vancouver Island, Salt Spring and Hornby. These range from one-woman operations like Heppner’s, the most recent craft distillery to open here but surely not the last, to Saanich’s 23-acre Devine Distillery & Winery, bankrolled by co-owner John Windsor’s successful career as an Ontario property developer. Distilling seems an ideal retirement project for some, like Hornby Island’s Island Spirits Distillery, run by former ferry captain Peter Kimmerly; for others, it’s a natural outgrowth of operating a craft brewery or cidery. Many of the techniques and some of the equipment is in common, and so it’s not been a big leap for Victoria-based Phillips Fermentorium Distilling Company to diversify into whisky and gin, or for Merridale Cidery & Distillery to make various brandies from the same photogenic pommes and pears that surround its Cobble Hill plant.
And if there’s any doubt that Vancouver Island craft distilleries are on the verge of the kind of international recognition that has greeted this province’s wineries, consider the surprising rise of Sooke’s Sheringham Distillery. After only four years in business, owners Jason and Alayne MacIsaac and their team won a “world’s best contemporary gin” award in 2019. It’s a well-deserved honour.
Scott’s straightforward style is effective in conveying the science behind the distilling process, and the stories behind the distilleries themselves. It’s perhaps unfortunate that she doesn’t offer more colourful descriptions of the beverages on offer; The Distilleries of Vancouver Island doesn’t say much about taste or mouthfeel or aroma. But that might be for the best. As Scott notes, “What might be my favourite gin tastes like gasoline to others.”
The thirst this book provokes is more for personal discovery than for expert guidance, and with that in mind I’m already plotting post-COVID field trips to Sheringham, Island Spirits, and several other facilities, including a return visit to Betty and Veronica.
This time I’ll ask about Jughead. 9781771513326
Alexander Varty is a musician and writer living on unceded Snuneymuxw territory
Articles: 1 Article for this author
Naturally Salty (TouchWood Editions, $18.95)
Article
Marianne Scott of the Netherlands rediscovered her seafaring roots when she and her husband sailed to Bora-Bora and back. Based in Victoria, she has interviewed 31 West Coasters for Naturally Salty (TouchWood Editions, $18.95). Among her subjects such as the Potts Lagoon hermit Bob Stewart, shipwreck hunter James Delgado; orca specialist Paul Spong and Fishing with John author Edith Iglauer, last but not least there's 75-year-old Charlie White. This edited synopsis of the life of Charlie White is drawn from Marianne Scott's profile. White has started more than 30 businesses including Victoria's Undersea Gardens, operated his publishing company, co-founded CHEK-TV, invented newfangled gizmos and fished with clients such as Kevin Costner and Bob Hope-when he wasn't busy catching readers. Back in 1969, when Charlie White was an ex-fishing guide, a local newspaper editor asked him to jot down an article on how to catch crabs. "I decided it could be a little book and I dictated it in a couple hours."; A local printer said he'd be lucky to sell 500. Since then Charlie White has been more than lucky. He's been damned smart. Reputedly his How to Catch Crabs has sold 100,000 copies. Instead of selling for a buck, as it did originally, it sells for $8.95. White's second book, How to Catch Salmon: Basic Techniques, encouraged him to release more how-to fishing titles such as How to Catch Trout, How to Catch Shellfish, Quick Tips for Catching Halibut, etc. For a guy who gets seasick on rough water, it's been a strange route to becoming a fishing guru. 1-894898-03-6
[BCBW 2003]
