I was browsing social media one night and saw a party happening at a place called Wiseacre Farm Distillery. It got me to lean in because I had never heard of them, and because of my recent growing obsession with homemade craft cocktails. Micro-distilleries are starting to pick up in popularity, and I figured because of what the Okanagan produces, there must be some local places making gin. There’s Legend Distilling in Naramata, BC. and a few in Kelowna including Forbidden Spirits. My favorite gins so far have been Sheringham and Victoria Distillers (who make Empress 1908 gin), both from Vancouver Island.

Wiseacre Farm Distillery Tour and Tasting

Our tasting at Wiseacre was booked for 11am. A bit early in the day, but we figured it would be better earlier in the day and we could head over for lunch afterward. We showed up and were greeted by James, who we later learned is the co-proprietor and a couple of very cute doggos!

I wasn’t paying much attention when I booked our tasting, but apparently, it also included a tour! We were handed a couple of lavender lemonades, which was a really nice detail for accompaniment while walking the grounds. There were the most beautiful chickens for producing eggs. We got to meet Valentine, their sole cow born on Valentine’s Day and destined for the farm-to-never-table lifestyle. We got to meet a couple of donkeys, including Peppa Pig who is the star pictured on their vodka.

After the tour, we got to sit down in the tasting room and make our way across the different gins. I asked to taste the “lazy ass” vodka again, straight-up because I wanted to see what it was like outside the lavender lemonade. We ended up buying the single malt vodka (yes, made like scotch!) and the R&D Gin Series 13. They make small batches of everything and are constantly tweaking it, so we’re going to have to keep checking in on them constantly. They made a lavender gin once, so they’ve got my interest for the next little while.

Lunch at Home Block

Coffee at Bright Jenny

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Vice & Virtue Brewing Tasting Room

The tasting room at Vice & Victure isn’t huge … but it’s nicer that way. There are a few tables by the door, and then a few more alongside the outside facing wall. During the summer, they have a small outdoor patio just outside the front door. It would be hard to go as a larger group, like more than 6 people, in my opinion. But it’s perfect for gathering with a few people.

Lately, I haven’t been able to stomach it, but flights are my absolute go-to whenever we go to breweries. I love being able to taste a variety of beers. The “Love Potion” is my favorite, as it’s a sour beer. It’s the closest to my most favorite sour in the world, from Hearthstone Brewing in North Vancouver.

The Food

Any time we have a beverage, I’m always in the mood for a snack. And they have all-day brunch on Sundays. We have yet to try the brunch on Sundays, but we usually enjoy the burgers. We really enjoyed the brisket, as well as the vegetarian option, it was halloumi with sweet potato.

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It was hard to figure out what to wear for snowshoeing. We didn’t know what to expect so we wore our winter gear and snow pants. If you’ve never been before, it’s literally hiking but with big paddles on your feet so you can traverse over snow more easily. When we went out, there hadn’t been much snow so the path at Myra Bellevue was well worn, so the snow was actually pretty well packed down in most places that you could have just walked with your shoes. We really didn’t need snow pants, but it kept us comfortable.

The trail takes you through tunnels and over trestle bridges. It’s part of the Kettle Valley Railway (KVR) and runs along a canyon. This trail was all originally built by hand. And the trail is the longest rail-trail network in BC, as it’s 650 km of connected pathways from Hope to Castlegar.

Snowshoeing is really fun if you’ve never done it before. We also got a pretty decent sweat on once we really got going. It didn’t take long to get comfortable walking around in the snowshoes. I didn’t have a great pair of winter shoes or boots to wear, so by the end of the snowshoe, my shoes were a bit wet from the snow. Depending on the weather, it makes sense to dress in layers so you can add and remove as needed. We really didn’t need poles because it’s pretty easy to find your balance, but it does make the whole experience more steady.

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The race started at 8:10am so we had a pretty laid back morning getting up and going. I’m trying to do way more carboloading before my races now, so I was able to hit almost 550g of carbs the day before the race. I woke up feeling too full for breakfast, so we just had oat milk lattes and I ate 2 wine gums.

It was easy finding parking, however, the lines at the portapotties were super long so we ended up starting the race 2 minutes late, and I made a decision to try and catch up to my desired pacers.

My GPS wasn’t turned for the first 5km because I had been fussing with settings the night before and never finished doing what I was doing, so ran by HR for that first bit.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have done that because my heart rate got too high too early into the race. I finally turned on the GPS after 5km and then switched to running by pace, with my 8min run 30-second walks. My legs felt so awesome throughout. I cannot remember the last time I felt so strong.

My stomach felt really full throughout. I got most of 1 gel in near the beginning of the race, and then just had water throughout. I almost barfed once around the 12km mark so just dialed exertion back a bit for the rest of the race. There are a couple of lollipops on the course, where the course runs back on itself, so I was hoping to be able to sight Justin but wasn’t able to. I was able to spot my friend Jeannine as she was running the 10k.

Felt like I could’ve run faster if my stomach didn’t feel so full the entire time, but overall a good day! I will skip the oat milk with my coffee next time. I focused on my form a lot through the race. And maybe I could’ve breathed more deeply throughout.

The temperature was 3C at the race start, so I wore crops, a tshirt, long sleeve, vest, hydration vest, hat, gloves. Switched to buff to cover ears and took off vest and gloves during the race.

The post-race for runners was great. There were bananas, pastries, cookies, chips, juice, as well as hot coffee and hot chocolate. I couldn’t get over how wonderful it was to enjoy those hot drinks inside merchandise/gear pickup tents. Since it was also the 25th anniversary of this race, they had this super cute display of mini cupcakes.

We really enjoyed running this race, and we look forward to next year. The race bling might be hard to beat because the 2019 medal is so cool, it spins and it’s glittery!

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Friday Afternoon – Wineries and Golf

I was expecting my friend to show up a little closer to noon, so that we could possibly have lunch before heading out for wine tastings. And also have time to get in a round of golf afterward. She was wrapping up her work trip “nearby” just north of Vernon, but there was so much traffic so it took her a bit longer than expected to get into Kelowna. Though, it really really didn’t matter what time we started because you can only really hit up so many wineries before they all start to taste the same… if you know what I mean.

We headed out to Summerland because we like a lot of wineries out there, and since it was the long weekend we thought we would try and avoid the crowds locally in Kelowna. We drove down and started our tasting up at Thornhaven. The last time we went, we loved everything they had to offer. This time we found everything to be much sweeter than we remembered. It was good, but today it was not to our taste. We had a great time in the tasting room though, as we lucked out between crowds and had the whole place to ourselves.

In addition to Thornhaven winery, we also went to Lunessence, Silkscarf, and Sumac Ridge before we headed back. Lunessence has great red wines and beautiful views of the vineyard and the lake. One of our friends really likes Silkscarf so we went back, but again we really didn’t care for it so I think we’ll stop trying. Shelby really likes wines from Sumac Ridge so we brought her there to wrap up the winery tastings. Sumac Ridge had a great range of wine to try, and we really like the Stellars Jay bubbly from there. After trying not to buy too many wines, we had a decent haul for ourselves to bring home.

Summerland is a quick jaunt away from Kelowna, so it didn’t take very long to get back. We put on our golf gear before we went wine tasting, so we were able to drive straight to the golf course. We decided to take Shelby to 2 Eagles in West Kelowna. She said she hadn’t played in a while, and we thought the front 9 offers beautiful views, isn’t terribly challenging, super walkable and gives you a good opportunity to socialize.

Since we were playing a twilight round and it was getting late, we decided to just eat at the course. The weather was super nice and we sat out on the patio.

Saturday – Hikes, Brunch, Charcuterie and Dinner

Sunday started off with a hike at Knox Mountain. If you’ve never hiked anywhere in Kelowna, Knox is a great place for it to be your first. We parked in the lower lot, and took the trail up to the top. We hiked Apex to Camelot to Ogopogo to Paul’s Tomb.

It took us a little over 90 minutes to do the hike, and then headed out for brunch at Central.

The food is pretty consistent at Central. We ended up crashing their luau party, so they had an even more fun selection of food. But we all ended up deciding to order off the regular menu. Brunch was really filling, so we decided that the beach was in order to relax and enjoy the afternoon.

There are tons of beaches in Kelowna, but Gyro is a nice place to go if it’s your first time. There’s plenty of parking, and the beach is quite large with a mix of sand, and grassy areas at the back. There are nice restrooms and change rooms nearby, as well as a simple food kiosk. There’s also a ton of shops and restaurants nearby, so it’s really quite a good setup.

Since we had been out all day, we headed home for our own little happy hour and dinner. Our friends turned us onto truffle salami, so we put some of that out with home made hummus and garden grown cherry heirloom tomatoes. We love snacking at our house, so we think we put together a pretty mean charcuterie. We will soon have to get ourselves a graze board since those seem to be all the rage, but I like keeping all the snacks separate so they don’t get soggy and mixed up.

Justin made lightly grilled albacore tuna, Shishito peppers, yams, yellow zucchini and grilled romaine for dinner.

After dinner, we ended up hanging outside on the patio some more with a couple bottles of wine. It was the perfect temperature, not too hot and not too cold. There was a slight breeze and didn’t seem like there were too many mosquitos out. We fired up the outdoor fireplace, and turned on the string lights. It was a perfect way to cap off Shelby’s visit.

Sunday – Chilling and Mountain Biking

Shelby wanted to hit the road early since she was heading back to Vancouver, so she left in the morning. Justin and I ended up going mountain biking to wrap up our weekend.

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Package Pickup

Package pickup is really straight forward, as it is just at MEC. It’s a pretty minimal race package, as all you are doing is picking up your race bib. And you get the chance to explore the store for things that you might not need, but want.

Race Day

The best thing about this series is the races start pretty “late”. The 10k started at 9am, and there was a 5k distance that started at 9:15am. It felt like the setup of tents was much smaller at Myra Bellevue. We knew parking was going to be limited that morning, so we decided to leave early and it was a good thing we did. When we rolled up, we snagged one of the last couple of spots in the lot. It wasn’t bad if you missed out, but you had to park further down the road and it was a little bit of a trek because there was construction and it ate up a lot of the prime parking on what would’ve been the shoulder of the road.

I’m still struggling with digestion issues. Not as bad a a few months ago, but it’s not great. We had breakfast smoothies on the road, and then I decided to eat a chocolate chip granola bar. I don’t think granola or oats really agree with me, and oatmeal really threw a wicked wrench into my whole day in Whistler for my Ironman Canada 70.3 race in 2017. I should know better by now. I felt like it took me a really long time to warm up, and my stomach just felt bloated for a good chunk of the race which is tragic considering this was only 10k. I think I need to start doing 1-2 mile warmups before any race now.

The course was beautiful. We had no idea what to expect, other than we knew it was going to be a little less elevation than Big White. Justin was feeling strong so he ran ahead of me for a good chunk of it. I decided that I would try and hang onto anyone in front of me and try not to lose them. I power walked a lot of the hills, and tried to run all of the descents.

I was really impressed at my fellow racers. A lot of the racers around me would also power hike the climbs, and then they would fly down the descents and I wouldn’t see them again.

Overall, Myra Bellevue is gorgeous and we cannot wait to go back. I realized I need much stiffer trail shoes for a course like that. Myra Bellevue is pretty rocky with a lot of roots, and I could feel every step with the shoes I currently run in. There were a couple mountain bikers out, and the areas we ran in looked like pretty easy trails to navigate. Like I said before, I can’t wait to go back and bring our mountain bikes. There are stunning views of the lake and mountains to take in on foot or on two wheels.

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Canoe is located in an up-and-coming neighbourhood, so the area is still pretty industrial. Be aware of huge potholes in their parking lot. There’s a couch and couple of chairs immediately to the left of the entrance, the bar, and additional bar seating and tables at the back. I noticed the garage style doors towards the back of the shop so I walked up to check out their courtyard. It had a bunch of long tables and cute string lighting, and beyond that were entrances to possibly more room for seating. I asked the barista what that was about, thinking it was Canoe’s summer-only space. It turns out to be an interior designer’s space/rental/event space.

There’s a space in the back of the coffee shop where they do their own roasting of beans. I debated buying a bag of beans, but I figured since we were local that we could just enjoy freshly made beverages from the barista, rather than making our own!

It was late in the day so I ordered a decaf flat white, and my friend had an Americano with a pain au chocolat. Everything was SUPER good! Normally I don’t expect much from a decaf espresso, but I couldn’t believe the flavour and taste. We sat at the front couches, and it got pretty toasty from the sun and exposure. It was pretty quiet the entire time we were there, so a good place to work from if you need a little inspiration and change of scenery.

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There’s only a few parking stalls out front and there’s a little patio that has a couple tables which I would assume is going to be awesome for summer. When you going inside there are a few long tables throughout the tasting room. The way they have the place laid out is you go up to the bar to order your drinks. They have their menu printed out on wood panels behind the bar so you can see what to order. They didn’t have a tasting flights listed, so we asked and found out they actually did offer tasting flights, 5 ounce glasses for $8. We both got tasting flights so we could taste their entire offering and have a variety of beers. They drew them up pretty quickly and after we paid we went to get ourselves a seat. It was actually really quiet in the tasting room so that was kind of nice. Farthest from the bar, or to the left when you walk in, you can see some brewing tanks behind these glass cupboards. I don’t have much experience with brewing other than tasting and drinking beer, but they looked like pretty tiny tanks so I imagine they are just for display.

Overall really nice vibes in the tasting room, I can imagine it getting pretty loud in the summertime but since it was a Sunday with Spring just around the corner, it was pretty quiet and easy to find seating. All of the beers were super tasty, and so it’s safe to say there’ll be plenty more Knox Mountain hikes and post-hike beers come the summer.

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The Pickup Party

Since the winery is closed for the winter, CedarCreek was hosting this pickup party at a community center, and honestly, Justin and I didn’t think much of it. We figured it was going to be very casual, almost like a regular tasting where we would just stand about. We were wrong! We also had to pick time slots for our pickup, and we were late to the game and could only snag an 11am pickup slot! For a wine tasting! That gave us a bit of a laugh, to be wine tasting at 11am, but who cares really. But we when we showed up, we were greeted with glasses of bubbly, a new release. And we saw that it was a seated wine tasting! There’s nothing more I love that sitting down to have my wine.

The Setup

There were 2 long tables that we were invited to have a seat at. Every seat had 4 glasses of wine set up. CedarCreek’s Winemaker, Taylor Whelan, took us through the tasting. And the Executive Chef, Neil Taylor, gave us a preview of what was to come for the new restaurant to be opening at the winery.

The Wine and Food

There were 4 wine tastings, in addition to the Sparkling Brut. There was a Sauvignon Blanc (which is not available to the public until September), a 2016 Cabernet-Merlot, 2015 Estate Meritage, and 2015 Platinum Meritage. The scallop crudo was paired with the Sauvignon Blanc, and it was beyond incredible. Scallops are not normally the first thing I would pick on menus when we’re out, because it’s usually not done very well. But I should’ve known better that when scallops are specially prepared by winery chefs, that it was going to be amazing. It was phenomenal.

The Fabada, a Spanish Bean Stew was also served as one of the food pairings. I loved it. It’s a new dish to us, and it was spicy and delicious. To be honest, I wasn’t paying too close attention so I’m not entirely sure which red it was supposed to be paired with… and also I thought it went incredibly well with all of them! We were socializing with people seated around us, and taking our time from wine to wine. All of the wine was pretty tasty. The white will be a great patio wine. 2015 Estate Meritage needs some more time in the bottle, or perhaps some aeration. Justin enjoyed the Cab-Merlot the most, and I’d say I have to agree.

The tasting moved along fairly quick, because they were doing a seated tasting on the hour every hour. We were invited to take our glasses to enjoy at some of the standing tables. And some of us took to the lineup to pick up our shipment. That proved to be a smart idea, as it did take a few minutes. They had a ton of boxes around, and people like us were adding more wine to our shipment. We picked up our shipment and grabbed a couple bottles of the Sauvignon Blanc and the the new 2016 Senator’s Red.

We’ll have to do a throwback post on their summertime event when they released 3 Platinum Whites. Stay tuned in for that! It was an alfresco sit down food and wine pairing at the vineyard, with views of the lake during the summer.

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