My all-time favourite question from the “Gay Dating Game,” a parody of ABC television’s heterosexual version, was: “If I were a potato would you… a) mash me? b) bake me? c) fry me?” After discovering Schramm vodka from British Columbia’s own Pemberton Distillery, I’d be more inclined to answer, “Drink me!”

Talk of the ubiquitous potato was what got the idea brewing in 2002. Tyler Schramm and his brother Jonathan were surveying their newly acquired farmland in the scenic “Spud Valley” north of Whistler, BC, wondering what to do with the acres of potatoes they’d obtained.

Producing french fries for poutine wasn’t Tyler’s style; he had written his master’s thesis in potato vodka distilling at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. Since the vodka’s launch in August, 2009, the BC Liquor Distribution Branch can’t get enough of this local stuff. Schramm credits the success of his distillery (complete with green design elements, including geothermal heating and cooling—both for the hot water and the building’s climate control) to the combination of organic potatoes from Pemberton Valley’s Across the Creek Organics, and simple, pure water from the area’s plentiful mountain streams.

It’s the taters, too, that account for the hint-of-peppery, earthy taste that produce a vodka that feels like a mouthful of liquid silk turning to creamy velvet as it slips down the back of your throat. I like to drink mine neat, with a plate of smoked black cod, sprinkled with alder-smoked sea salt from Haida Gwaii. The cod is optional. The vodka is definitely not.
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