words :: Feet Banks
The barstool has long been a place where fresh ideas come to life. Everything from Discovery Channel’s Shark Week to inflatable tents to economic taxation models are rumoured to have started as scribbles on a cocktail napkin.
In Whistler in 2024, another disruptive idea sprung into existence at an après ski bar: What if the spirits in our favourite après cocktails could be crafted sustainably from pesticide-free ingredients? A shared idea, an innovative goal, and Audécious’ Vodka was born.
“Our mission is simple: Drink clean,” declares Audécious CEO (and proud ski racing dad) Kevin Yeung. “That means leading people away from traditional alcoholic beverages made from pesticide-reliant ingredients that can be harmful to people, wildlife, and the environment.”
Yeung spent his teenage years living in Pennsylvania, a big agricultural state. “I was partially raised by my aunt who was a leading pediatric oncologist,” he says, “At the dinner table I would hear firsthand about the links between harmful pesticides and devastating cancers.”
Yeung later served UNICEF as an advocacy and special fundraising chairman to protect vulnerable women and children. A UNICEF report released in June 2026 found that global pesticide use has doubled since 1990, putting roughly 490 million children at risk of living near areas where agricultural pesticides are applied.
Through conversations with friends/après enthusiasts (and future Audécious partners) Dr. PJ Murphy and Dr. Calvin Jung, as well as Whistler service industry vets, friends, and athletes (including Olympian and World Cup skicross champion Reese Howden), the Audécious mission solidified.
“We believe the true costs of producing traditional alcoholic beverages is simply too high,” Yeung says. “So we challenged ourselves to reimagine how drinks could be crafted and see if people would actually want them.”
Poured from an eye-grabbing bottle inspired by the 2010 Winter Olympic torch, Audécious’ vodka began winning awards internationally, and quickly grew into a favourite in Whistler and Vancouver.
Two years later, Yeung and his team are ready to enhance the Audécious mission and up the ante: Can innovation help make a premium whisky-like liquor that’s both sustainable AND affordable? The answer, slated to hit bars across Whistler and the world this upcoming winter, is called Aquavitae.
In Latin, the name means “water of life,” a term medieval distillers gave to a spirit created from water and fire. Centuries later, as the craft of making spirts travelled and evolved, Gaelic distillers called their water of life uisge beatha, a phrase that eventually evolved into “whisky.” But the Audécious team has other reasons for choosing the name Aquavitae, in the kind of renegade spirit well woven through Whistler’s history, they’re disrupting a long-established (and expensive) industry.
“There are regulations in the European Union that say you can’t call your product ‘whisky’ unless it is aged at least three years in a wooden cask not exceeding 700 litres capacity,” Yeung notes. “We can craft our organic Aquavitae in less than 12 days…days, not 12 years. So, we’re proud to be able to offer our sustainable spirits at a fraction of the price… Age is just a number right?”
That sentiment certainly fits in an adventurous mountain community and culture where refusing to grow up and finding joy in peering over the edge into the unknown are celebrated traits. So, it made sense for the Aquavitae team to gather some friends at Whistler’s Firerock Lounge for the inaugural sample battle, pitting their sustainable and speedy Aquavitae spirits against some of the industry’s top offerings. (Spoiler Alert: it held up.)
But first: How do they do it? Whisky has long been valued for the length of time it matures in the barrel, and top sellers can take years to complete and retail for hundreds, even thousands of dollars. How can anyone even come close with just twelve days?
“We can challenge convention with curiosity and technology, however at the heart of it all is care. For example, for our Aquavite, we select uncompromising ingredients like Mizunara oak from Japan,” Yeung explains. “Mizunara oak is prized for being more permeable than other oak species and provides greater depth of flavour, a softer mouthfeel and a sweeter finish. We pair that precious wood with our outstanding organic single-malt ‘new make’ (the actual alcohol), which is made with organic barley grown in France.”
And here’s where things get wild. Working in stealth mode over the past year, Yeung’s team quietly fine tuned their taste profiles by sealing their new make and Mizunara oak (chips and staves) in an ultrasonic chamber, and dialing in temperature, micro-oxygenation rates, controlled flow of the liquid and even ultrasonic waves.
“We don’t use any additives, the ultrasonic waves allow us to naturally achieve our taste,” he says. “Ultrasonic waves generate energy that partly converts to heat and partly to cavitation—pressure fluctuations that drive our organic new make into the wood and draw it back out—mimicking an exchange that takes years inside a barrel. The heat helps break down the wood, releasing higher concentrations of flavour and colour.”
Yeung says that there is no loss to evaporation or leakage (the infamous “angel’s share” that affects traditional processes.) “The result is achieving a dramatically higher yield with remarkable efficiency.”
Of course, not everyone is convinced of the concept. One Whistler bar owner I talked to pointed out that “people have tried that before.” And it turns out, people have been “trying that” since the late 1800s. In The Manufacture of Whisky and Plain Spirit, a rare tome published in 1913, author J.A. Nettleton cites (long lost) patents for machines that would blast cold and hot air through the whiskey, as well as processes of adding sherry, mineral acid and/or potassium then evaporating the alcohol back off. To this day no one is exactly sure why but Nettleton notes, “Every conceivable method for imparting flavour and ‘age’ is recommended; previous proposals appear again dressed up somewhat differently: these are agitation processes, oxidation, treatment in vacuum, treatment with chemicals, with flavouring ethers, with electric light, ultra-violet rays, X-rays, &c.”
“There are certainly a number of methodologies out there to treat alcohol, some were derived from perfume production,” Yeung acknowledges. “Our team is obsessed with achieving exceptional taste, winning over people’s palates was paramount for us because it was unreasonable to expect consumers to switch to our clean products if we fail to deliver comparable tastes or are unable to achieve a level of smoothness previously reserved for the very best spirits.”
Over après at the Westin’s Firerock Lounge, concepts and processes took a back seat to what really matters: how does it taste? How does it drink? How does it hold up against the recognized top players in the industry?
To answer those questions, a dream team of Whistler’s whisky tasters were assembled, including seasoned professionals like Joel O’Neill (Director of Operations, Food & Beverage) and Heather MacDonald (President) from Gibbons Whistler, which operates nine bars and clubs throughout Whistler Village (including the infamous Longhorn Saloon) and has been local après experts since 1979.
But since one of Aquavitae’s top goals is to democratize taste and make exceptional flavours more accessible for people from all walks of life, Yeung also invited Spiritual Snowboarder/musician Sarah Personne (who has a tattoo on her arm that says “Drink Whiskey, Snowboard”), myself (more of a sake lover but happy to help), chef/whisky enthusiast Ian Tang (who recently built a speakeasy in his basement with a bar lined with whisky bottles) and sports photographer and spirits fan Michael Ferguson.
“The secret to my youth is whisky,” Personne announced playfully at the start of the tasting. “But only the good ones.”
With the chips on the table, and the liquid on the lips, Aquavitae performed, easily holding its own against high end standard whiskies such as the popular Macallan 15 double cask, Johnnie Walker Blue Label and even up against the gold-standard Yamazaki 18 (exorbitantly priced at $1550 in BC liquor stores). Yeung explained Aquavitae’s plans to initially launch with two versions of single malts, a more traditional peaty flavour along with a smoother variant. “The number of expressions are virtually endless,” Yeung said, before adding “it’s exciting because we can make custom Aquavitae options for longtime customers like Gibbons.”
“I’m sipping the future, this is a transformative drink, ” Ferguson said“Off the bat, it’s got a beautiful nose, it hits the right notes with a level of smoothness that’s beyond any of the bottles here.”
He added that he preferred the Aquavitae to both Macallan and the Blue Label, Ferguson added that he did find its finish a bit young against the Yamazaki, which is not organic and also not affordable for most people.
“It smells so floral, like a perfume,” Personne added. “It’s one of the best I’ve tasted in my life. I’m hypersensitive and sometimes even with the most expensive whiskeys I can still feel a bit of harshness in my throat and esophagus. I don’t feel any of that with Aquavitae, it’s so unbelievably smooth. I think it has to do with the purer ingredients that they use. Alcohol affects our soul, that is why they call it ‘spirits.’ So on that idea alone, now I don’t want a spirit with pesticides in it.”
With a number of years bartending experience at some of Whistler’s most popular joints, Joel O’Neill immediately saw the potential of Aquavitae’s smooth finish for use in cocktails. He expertly whipped up the best Old Fashioned I’ve ever had, saying, “it’s a smooth spirit, the peat balances it perfectly without being overwhelming.”
Weighing for the recreational enthusiast, Tang said, “I preferred the Aquavitae immediately over the two Scotches. When comparing it to the Yamazaki 18, it was noticeably smoother, but the depth of flavour is fractionally less than the Yamazaki which is astounding for being made in 12 days compared to 18 years. It’s an incredible accomplishment to create something this balanced in under two weeks. I’m not sure I even want to finish all the other Scotches in my bar at home. It’s kind of a bittersweet moment.”
Aquavitae, the “hacked” whisky, performed at the Firerock tasting, but the real fun, for Yeung and his team, will come in January 2027 when they can unleash their creation to Whistler après lovers and the 1.5 million guests and locals that frequent Gibbons establishments each year.
“I’m excited about this release,” MacDonald beamed. “We are always seeking the highest quality products, and when they are sustainable and organic that ticks all the boxes and makes our customers happy. People are seeking cleaner products so the timing is perfect.”
Certainly, there will always be traditionalists who like to drink (and pay top dollar) for traditional aged whiskies, and Yeung holds nothing against anyone who prefers the aged classics.
“Alcoholic beverages are made to be enjoyed,” he says. “Audécious’ goal is to offer the world’s best tasting clean products. It’s our mission because there are millions of cases of acute unintentional pesticide poisoning every year. Those powerful chemicals are affecting entire farming communities, wildlife species, and the environment we all share.”
“As humans, if we know the harm we should be championing a better future,”
He adds. “By spearheading the use of clean, pesticide-free ingredients with sustainable processes, we can show the world a better way is not only possible, but that clean drinks can also taste better too. We always believed exceptional taste should be available to everyone, and we want to remove price as a legacy barrier.”
Yeung smirks a bit before adding, “However, if we choose to, we can always put our organic Aquavitae in a cask for three years and start calling it whisky. That way even the traditionalists can enjoy a cleaner future.”
Vodka, whisky and everything in between: Let the record show—après is a perfectly acceptable place for big ideas to emerge, and it’s never too late in the day for a little industry wide disruption.
