Scrappy, upstart farm distillery on Victoria Island is landing major awards

June 25th wasn’t just a gorgeous summer afternoon in the California Delta, it was also Anthony Bourdain Day there and everywhere else in the world. The annual commemoration was invented six years ago by famed chefs José Andrés and Eric Ripert before getting wholly embraced by overworked cooks, outlaw writers and broke travel junkies across the globe. Adherents are still figuring out how the holiday works, exactly, beyond nodding at the birthday of an individualist pathfinder who changed our views on cultural connectedness. But for most, the best way to get into this memorial moment is by taking a break from your day to pursue what Bourdain called “raw craft” — the dedicated mastery of a culinary art or creative food tradition. 

And on this recent June 25th, that’s exactly what a small group of people were doing on Victoria Island in the south Delta. They were wandering in from the midday sunlight to a weathered asparagus-packing plant that now houses a working farm distillery. The place, called Sabbatical, stands on a fourth-generation agricultural spread a few miles from Discovery Bay. Jack Zech, whose family has been growing vegetables, berries and nuts on the island since the early 60s, was on hand as visitors strolled in by the stacked whiskey barrels. So too was distiller and co-owner Daniel Leonard, who was carefully arranging bottles of bourbon, gin and vodka inside the tasting room. 

Leonard started pouring Sabbatical’s Blended Whiskey for a guest, which won a Double Gold medal last year at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. As he finished, a visitor lifted a glass to Anthony Bourdain Day. Leonard thought about that for a second. “That’s a good ‘cheers,’” he acknowledged, “and it’s sad at the same time.”  

But Bourdain’s fans tend to balance that poignancy with a focus on what he taught his readers and viewers, especially about previously undervalued concepts like raw craft; and the way that Zech and Leonard are honoring whiskey’s past, while pushing for innovation, is a perfect example of the raw craft phenomenon. Take, for example, their Table Blend No. 1: It’s a mix of Sabbatical’s bourbon with three different single malt whiskeys made on the farm, the aging process split 50/50 between new American oak and used American oak barrels. The result is a calming 80-proof sipping spirit that’s layered enough for sharing with connoisseurs but affordable enough to bring to parties.   

“This was our original vision when we were starting the distillery,” Leonard said, looking down at a bottle. “This is what we thought was not really out there, that we wanted to create — a lighter whiskey and lower ABV that still had flavor, integrity and three-dimensionality and was a little more in the style of Japanese whiskeys.”

He added, “We thought there was a place for a bourbon-forward mash bill, but that had the cleaner body without losing the grain-rich flavor.”       

That afternoon, Leonard was also pouring Sabbatical’s Straight Bourbon Whiskey, which at 100 proof, is currently the distillery’s best seller in stores around Northern California. Putting just a couple drops of water into this spirit conjures a slight tobacco fragrance, giving it the breath and calmness of a classic Irish whiskey. For homers, the difference is, of course, that this bottle is born from California water and sunlight. 

Not content to rest on that product’s popularity, Zech and Leonard have also been carefully infusing an American Single Malt Whiskey with cherrywood smoke. Singular and mosaic, it musters a rare balance between brightness and spices within its essence of Delta fruit wood.    

“It’s all about how the barley is treated — instead of being peated, it’s wood from an American cherry tree,” Leonard explained. “We originally got our hands on every single malted barley we could find and made teas out of them, and tried them as teas first. We were trying to find that last character component to round out this flavor. We aged it in new American oak barrels, so it’s a scotch-style mash bill, with a hundred percent barley, but aged like bourbon. So, you’re somewhere in between with it. Compared to what you’ve already had, this is going to be earthier with some sweet notes from those barrels.”  

Finally, it was time for Leonard to pour the big show: Sabbatical’s Single Barrel Select Straight Bourbon Whiskey. In May, it was awarded a Double Gold medal from the 2025 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. It’s easy to see how this vintage caught the judges’ attention. One sip reveals its deep, electric flavor-reflections under a smoldering plume of caramel radiance. Nine years ago, when Bourdain was interviewing Scotch distillers in Dufftown, he asked this question about whiskey-making: “Is it a profession? Is it an art? Is it a craft?” Only bottles that taste like they have some criminal alchemy and the ability to transport you somewhere merit this timeless contemplation — and Sabbatical’s Single Barrel Select Straight Bourbon is one of them.

For Zech, winning the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in back-to-back years, for two very different whiskeys, was a bit surreal. 

“This competition is especially important to me,” Zech acknowledged. “San Francisco was ‘the city’ to me while I was growing up on Victoria Island; and my experiences in San Francisco pushed me to explore the world and to come back to where I started … I wanted to enter this product simply because it was the best product we have ever made: It totally changed my mind about cask-strength bourbons.”

Now, looking forward, Zech and Leonard are excited that they’ve officially been around long enough now to start releasing more of the aged whiskeys their distillery has been focusing on since the beginning. They’re determined to show that Sabbatical has something meaningful to add to the story of California whiskeys and bourbons.

“I’ve only ever put things in bottles that I would drink,” Leonard said. “But from where we started, until now, it’s a different ball game.”

Sabbatical Distillery is located 16021 W. Highway 4 in the Delta. Check here for tours and tasting times.