Opening a new distillery/taproom/pub is not an easy process, but after three years of development, Moose Jaw’s Luby Bower Distillery is open to the public for tours, tastings, and drop-in hours.
Located at 1300 Lakeview Road, the family-run micro-distillery produces a signature line of gin with carefully crafted floral notes, a Luby Bower vodka, and, soon, an authentic Canadian Luby Bower whisky.
The business is currently closed on Mondays and Sundays, open for reservations and tours on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and open to the public from 4 to 8 p.m. on Fridays and 12 to 6 p.m. on Saturdays.
Information on booking reservations and tours is available by emailing info@lubybower.ca.
The Luby Bower Distillery is owned and operated by husband-and-wife team Brennan and Tamara Hilbig. Brennan’s brother Evan Hilbig and cousin Jim Smith are also co-owners.
The name comes from the owners’ grandmothers.
“When I first expressed my interest in doing this to Tamara’s grandmother, she talked about her dad, Sidney Bower,” Brennan Hilbig explained to MooseJawToday.com during a tour. “She said that he actually used to make moonshine, and there’s pictures of him with barrels and bottles and whatnot. So, I found that really interesting.”
Luby is Hilbig’s grandmother’s maiden name. He, Evan, and Jimmy trace their Luby heritage back through Newfoundland to Ireland — and the name was realized.
“The name really just seemed right, it was like, ‘Yep, that’s it, that’s the name,’” Hilbig said.
But the idea for a distillery started before the name was discovered. Brennan and Tamara, a physician, took a trip to Ireland and Scotland and toured many of the famous and historic distilleries there.
They learned the finer points of tasting whisky (Scottish and Canadian spelling) and whiskey (Irish and American spelling), and Brennan realized he wanted to look further into the possibility of opening their own distillery.
“It’s a big learning curve coming from what I used to do,” he admitted wryly. Hilbig’s career for close to 20 years was as a firefighter in Prince Albert. He worked four days on, four days off, commuting back and forth from Moose Jaw.
“It all kind of worked out,” he said. “I was getting close to being done there, and we’d just had our first daughter, and I thought, ‘I’m not going to be travelling back and forth to Prince Albert anymore.’ So, it just felt like the right time.”
Learning to make the product has been easy, Hilbig said. Distilling, bottling, and labeling are no problem — it’s the paperwork that’s difficult. He and his co-owners began the process as far back as 2019.
Hilbig said that while everyone he’s worked with has been extremely helpful, the various approvals at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels still took long enough for him to renovate the building all by himself. He has tiled and drywalled and painted, built a beautiful copper-topped bar, and is now finishing off an ‘Irish snug’-themed dart room.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” he added. “Right now, our signature product would be our gin, and the one we have right now is our Hibiscus Lavender. It’s strong and bold, and it’s very popular.”
Hilbig will soon begin working to produce Luby Bower’s first whisky. He and his co-owners are excited for the future and looking forward to building relationships, pioneering new flavours, and establishing their brand and reputation in the province, the country, and beyond.
