At the end of Progress Way, a commercial road adjacent to Highway 99 in Squamish, a big boxy building sits next to a small swath of forest. The Corridor Trail cuts through the trees and you can spot the iconic Black Tusk spire from the parking lot. It’s more industrial than wilderness park, but the spirit of adventure is found inside Raincity Distillery.
There’s a yin-yang vibe in the 17-seat lounge, where come-as-you-are après drinks meet milestone events, like the low-key wedding this evening. The extensive cocktail menu is at once approachable and exploratory, inviting guests to settle in at the compact tables to chat as music such as Sade’s “Smooth Operator” plays in the background. The space is designed to offer glimpses beyond the bar into the distilling operations, where a gleaming column still rises to the ceiling.
This ambience is exactly what owners Johnny Xu and Alex Mumm intended to create when they bought the distillery from the previous owners in 2022. The longtime friends had envisioned a space to kick back with cocktails that are complex in concept yet accessible in taste, complemented by cool music.
“We wanted to create a place that we could chill in,” says Xu, who is originally from China and was raised in B.C. He and Mumm, a self-proclaimed farm boy from Saskatchewan, met at BCIT, where they were both studying engineering.
Rather than follow the traditional route of “an accountant with physics,” as Mumm describes the reality of many engineering careers, “we wanted to do something a bit more exciting. We both really wanted to start a distillery.”
The pair also bonded over their love of baijiu, China’s most revered spirit. Xu dreams of distilling it one day, but the need for multiple fermentations and distillations means this idea will have to wait. For now, the partners’ focus is on small-batch distilling according to artisanal spirit guidelines, which require using 100 percent B.C.-sourced products. Water from Squamish and wheat milled in the Peace River agricultural region form the foundation of Raincity’s vodka, which in turn is the base spirit for its gins and aromatic liqueurs.
“Wheat is smooth and silky,” says Mumm, Raincity’s head distiller, explaining why they chose the grain instead of potatoes from nearby Pemberton. Plus “it has a hint of vanilla.”
Then it’s all about experimentation, often with Asian ingredients. Raincity’s first original recipe was for Iron Buddha Gin. Mumm wanted to incorporate the essence of oolong tea — Tie Guan Yin, which translates to “Iron Goddess of Mercy” — into a gin for Negronis, among other cocktails.
Xu, who is in charge of sales and lounge operations, was skeptical. He’d never thought of blending a Chinese staple into alcohol. But he was soon swayed. “It was surprisingly good,” he says. “And when you [mix it] with a low-sugar tonic, it brings out the tea much more.”
Mumm says the characteristic astringency of the oolong tea is tempered during the distillation process, when it, along with other botanicals, is cold-macerated for two weeks before bottling. In a similar vein, the juniper-forward Last Garden Gin gets floral hits from osmanthus, another Asian ingredient, plus elderflower. The spirit is ideal for a classic gin and tonic or the OSM (a.k.a. One Sip Martini), crafted with house-made vermouth and caper brine and garnished with a pickled sakura when the blossoms are in season.
With the spirits dialed in and R&D ongoing, the pair needed to decide what snacks to serve in the lounge. Mumm pondered having a single piece of equipment on hand that offered cooking versatility while recognizing the limits of a small staff.
Enter the steamer. Which naturally led to dumplings. For Mumm, anyway. Once again, Xu, whose early jobs and entrepreneurship were in the culinary world, said serving dim sum staples wasn’t the right fit. “Johnny thought it was a terrible idea,” Mumm acknowledges.
“Yeah, we always eat that as breakfast … not with alcohol, especially a cocktail,” Xu says. “I was thinking we needed to have chicken wings, French fries, pizza …” But once again, he came around to the concept, noting that since Mumm’s wife is Chinese, he’s well-attuned to the culture. “He’s more Asian than me,” Xu deadpans.
Dumplings are sourced in Metro Vancouver (after much taste testing by Mumm and Xu to find an array of options, including vegan and gluten-free), and Raincity makes the accompanying sauces in-house. The assorted platter is a feast that includes mo gu jiao (vegan mushroom), xiao long bao (soup-filled pork dumplings), fen guo (gluten-free pork, shrimp and veggie) and jiu cai jiao (pork and chive). No surprise: They’ve been a hit. Zero-spirit cocktails round out Raincity’s menu.
And the experimentation never stops. Mumm’s inspiration for multi-award-winning Black Tusk Smoked Vodka (named for the extinct volcanic peak nearby) came from a bartender’s smoking gun. The tool is used to infuse a cocktail with smoke, which is captured under a glass cloche and then presented to the guest. It took more than a hundred failed attempts to nail the recipe. Ultimately they found the right mix: combining the cold smoke from smouldering local Western red cedar with hickory for sweetness and infusing it into the vodka. The Seed and Leaf cocktail balances the smoky spirit with red grapefruit, lime, simple syrup and Raincity Intense Flame Chili Tincture.
Bar manager Masaki Kagawa and the team of mixologists constantly change up the menu, using seasonal ingredients like shiso leaves, which taste somewhat like a cross between basil and mint, says Mumm. Or reducing waste and extracting more flavour from banana peels by mixing them with sugar to make oleo saccharum (literally “oil sugar”), which goes into the Donkey Kong Punch cocktail along with cedar-infused white rum, sweet potato shochu, white miso, passionfruit, lemon and house-made coffee bitters. The outcome? Tropical with an umami punch.Sometimes unexpected pairings just work. Like when you drive to the end of an ordinary road and find a remarkable distillery with a chilled-out cocktail lounge created by two engineers, where oolong tea–infused gin makes a tasty Negroni and dumplings are the ideal accompaniment.
