Bottling the Kootenay spirit at Kootenay Country Craft Distillery

Get to know craft distillers Kevin and Lora Goodwin

If you could bottle the Kootenays, what would the ingredients be?

The first thing that comes to mind is immense natural beauty, stunning vistas, mountains, fields, rivers, lakes, and wide open spaces dotted with small friendly towns. It’s an open, accepting, warm hug from one friend to another—whether a brother, mother, lover or some other. It’s an entrepreneurial spirit. A built in DIY mindset born from adversity in our founders and maintained in the pursuit of sustainability today. It’s a young family settling and living off the land, creating a living and a life for themselves. It’s a desire to change the world, not through in-your-face, unfortunate truths, but through a quiet, peaceful demonstration of just how good life can really be. Yes, for me that is really the Kootenay spirit.

Kevin and Lora Goodwin with the still at Kootenay Country Craft Distillery. — Andrew Zwicker photo

There is another family in the region that embodies that sentiment and pours it into their own Kootenay spirits. Kevin and Lora Goodwin, originally from the Montana side of the Kootenays, have now settled in Winlaw. DIY entrepreneurs by nature as a direct result of living and loving rural settings, they have been organic strawberry farmers and then ran a construction company—whose last job was constructing a brand new craft distillery on their land in the Slocan Valley. Their path from idea to pouring their first vodka was four expensive years full of challenges of all sorts. Going all in and giving everything they have to the project in a labour of love created a result that has been truly impressive, not to mention delicious.

I sat down with Kevin and Lora in their new tasting room one year after officially launching. Selling out all they can produce while simultaneously working to write and rewrite the laws and regulations, the couple appears closer and happier than ever, still beaming about their new operation.

As you’ll learn they truly are living and bottling the Kootenay spirit. Their story is so good and the couple so charming, I couldn’t help but turn this into a two part episode.

What is your go-to energy boost?

We drink litres of tea. We are Earl Grey kind of people.

What is your favourite drink?

Normally we enjoy our spirits cold over ice by themselves. My favourite drink is my water. I really enjoy my water.

What one book would you recommend others pick up and read?

Kevin: There are two that come to mind. Unbroken was a book that I just read; it is a movie that just came out too. It is about Second World War fellow. Unbroken is a really great book.
Lora: The Drunken Botanist.

Is there any one resource or tool that makes life easier for you?

Probably the best resource any entrepreneur could have is a supportive spouse to jump in and help you.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?

You know really it is having a plan. You are nothing starting a business unless you know where you are trying to go.

What do you do to relax?

We love to ride horses.

Some day when they write the story of your life, what is it about, and who gets to play you in the movie?

I think it will be about following your dream. A couple who has an idea and has faith in it. Maybe it’s not a movie but rather a series of DIY documentaries, featuring ourselves.