Moose Jaws' first distillery is working hard to get things up and running.  

The Luby Bower Distillery is hoping to open its doors to the public at the end of July. 

The distillery is a full family operation, including Brennan Hilbig, CEO, his wife Tamara Hilbig, his brother Evan Hilbig, and his cousin Jimmy Smith.  

The distillery uses locally grown ingredients to make its alcohol and Brennan says the family connections make it easy.

“My cousin (Jimmy) who is involved, he’s a farmer, so we have direct access to whatever grains we want, and Tamara's family farms in Imperial, Sask., and that’s where we will be getting the majority of our barley.”  

The group's main focus is whiskey, but Brennan says they don’t plan to stop there. 

“It will be whiskey, gin and vodka, we have a couple of recipes, so there will probably be about 3 or 4 different types of gin, and then, of course, the whiskey takes 3 to 4 years to age minimum.”  

Once the doors open, there will be no shortage of things to see and do.  

“We will definitely be doing tours and tastings, we are actually building a tasting room right now that has a bar in it with a slight touch on the theme of prohibition,” says Brennan.  

The name Luby Bower is close to the owners' hearts as Brennan, Evan and Jimmy’s grandma's maiden name was ‘Luby,” and Tamara's grandmother's maiden name was ‘Bower’, the group decided this was the perfect way to pay homage to their European heritage.  

The distillery is located at 1300 Lakeview Rd and is working on a few final touches before the grand opening.