BC Gin Festival

The BC Gin Festival is a gin-themed spirits-tasting event at Vancouver’s Roundhouse Community Centre in Yaletown.

In 2025 the festival ran from March 26th to 29th. It concluded with the main tasting event at the Roundhouse Community Centre in Yaletown on the Saturday. Details on 2026 are to be announced.

Vancouver is home to a number of great festivals for other adult beverages. There was Whisky Global Vancouver in early winter and the Vancouver International Wine Festival in the spring. There is also Vancouver’s North Shore Craft Beer Week in November. The BC Gin Festival, meanwhile, happened in March. Other adult beverage-themed events in the spring included Brewhalla North Vancouver in April and Brewhalla Fort Langley in May.

To learn about the BC Gin Festival, continue reading or visit the event’s official website at bcginfestival.com.

Vancouver’s BC Gin Festival

The BC Gin Festival is a relatively new event. In 2025 it celebrated its second year in late March. The festival was run by the Vancouver Indian Summer Festival and serves as a fundraiser for that event which happens in July.

The BC Gin Festival is a great chance to taste local and international gins, as well as dive deep into the distillery process.

In 2025 the festival featured nearly 200 drinks from 30 different distilleries. Many of the distilleries are local. There were drinks from places like Tofino and Powell River in addition to the Metro Vancouver region. There were also a selection of international brands at the event from countries including England, Ireland, Finland and India.

Unlike many drink festivals, you don’t need to use tokens to get your drink samples at this event. When you attend the main tasting event you can try unlimited samples!

BC Gin Festival at the Roundhouse — Main Tasting Event at the Roundhouse

BC Gin Festival Tickets

The BC Gin Festival is only for adults ages 19 and up. The festival’s main event is the tasting night on Saturday, March 29th, at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre. The venue’s address is 181 Roundhouse Mews in Vancouver.

Admission to the tasting in 2025 costs $98 (plus taxes and other fees). As mentioned above, that price included all drink samples. It also included a souvenir gin glass.

The event ran from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. For those who wanted some extra time to sample the gins there are VIP tickets available which allow patrons to get in an hour early. VIP tickets cost $149.

There was also the Distiller’s Table Series which consisted of three events leading up to the big day. These events were more private, with just 20 spots available for each of them. They took place at Legacy Liquor Store at 1633 Manitoba Street. These special events offered the chance to learn more about some premium gin brands, and of course try them as well!

The Distiller’s Table Events each cost $125 to enjoy on their own, or $59 when added on to a ticket to the main tasting night. Go to the BC Gin Festival tickets page to see all the options.

2025 Schedule of Events

There were three Distiller’s Table Series events in addition to the main tasting night at the 2025 festival. All of the table events happened at the Legacy Liquor Store. The festival’s main event then took place at the Roundhouse Community Centre.

Below are details on each of the four events. Click Distiller’s Table Series for more on those three, or click BC Gin Festival for more on the main tasting night.

Salish Sea Spirits (Wednesday, March 26th, 2025)

The opening event of the 2025 festival took place at the Legacy Liquor Store at 7:00 pm. The tagline for the Salish Sea Spirits event was “When life gives you lemons…make a gin & tonic”. Salish Sea Spirits was a small craft distillery based in Powell River that made gin and vodka.

Guests at this event can sample gins and gin-based cocktails while also learning about the process through which each individual drink is created.

Empress 1908 (Thursday, March 27th, 2025)

Empress 1908 is the flagship drink for Victoria Distillers, an artisan company based in Sidney over on Vancouver Island. Similar to Salish Sea Spirits, guests at this event were able to sample cocktails and gin, including a special Oaken Gin which is a limited release drink. This event also began at 7:00 pm at the Legacy Liquor Store at 1633 Manitoba Street.

Citadelle Gin (Friday, March 28th, 2025)

Citadelle is a French company that calls itself the world’s first craft gin. Founded in 1996, Citadelle has become a highly successful gin and the process and ingredients used by the distillery were on display at 7:00 pm on March 28th at the Legacy Liquor Store in Vancouver.

The drinks available to sample at the table event included a special gin that’s no longer in production for the general public.

Main Event Tasting Night (Saturday, March 29th, 2025)

The BC Gin Festival’s main event happened from 6:00 to 8:00 pm at the Roundhouse (or from 5:00 to 8:00 pm for VIP ticket-holders). There are hundreds of gins on hand from over two dozen different distilleries. There were a couple of food options for purchase too.

There’s a bottle shop at the Roundhouse as well, so, if there’s a standout sample, you can immediately get a full bottle of it. As mentioned, proceeds from the festival are used to help fund the Vancouver Indian Summer Festival which is another great event.

BC Gin Festival Main Event Video

For an idea of what the festival’s main event at the Roundhouse Community Centre looks like, check out the video below. It showed scenes of the event from 2025. 2026 will likely be similar, but with exact details to be confirmed.