Follow Us:

Blog

KWM 2020 Whisky Calendar Day 15: Shelter Point Rye KWM Cask #346

Posted on November 7, 2021

by Evan

What is this? KWM single casks back to back in the 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar? What were we thinking?!? For Day Fifteen in our 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar we present to you the Shelter Point Rye KWM Cask #346.



We tasted our second bottling of Millstone KWM Single Cask Rye with the full-sized bottle still to come back on Day One, so this is the second Rye Whisky to grace our Whisky Calendar this year. It is the first Canadian Whisky to do so and the third KWM Cask we have seen in the 2020 KWM Whisky Calendar.

Why rye? Well, rye whisky has been undergoing a bit of a renaissance (Ryenaissance) over the past five or six years. In the USA, American Rye Whiskey has been booming, and in Canada, it has been undergoing a revival as well. Much of the Canadian attention has been due to the excellent Lot 40 bottlings from the Wiser's distillery in Windsor, Ontario and the Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye from made in Gimli, Manitoba. We have seen excellent smaller releases as well, with the excellent Ploughman's Rye from Eau Claire Distillery in the Turner Valley and the equally good first releases from Park Distillery in Banff.

The Best Alberta Premium Ever?? https://t.co/dXrSikGU2M

— Davin de Kergommeaux (@DavindeK) November 27, 2019

 

I had high hopes when I heard that this was being released. It does not disappoint. This is excellent Rye and it will likely win a few awards in the future. The price is amazing too! My tasting notes can be found here: https://t.co/3LQc9nwvRW pic.twitter.com/zO9RQ06T0M 

— Evan Eckersley (@SageLikeFool) October 21, 2019

And then there's that incredibly underrated distillery that makes extremely good 100% Rye whisky right here in Calgary: ADL or Alberta Distillers Limited. It's recent claim to fame? Perhaps you have heard of it - it is called the Alberta Premium Cask Strength. After some guy in a Panama Hat who is unfortunately good at writing a press release in an attempt to his book every year that makes the whisky world go crazy named it his Whisky of the Year and the media took his word as gospel, everybody went crazy and tried to track down what was already a mostly sold-out product.

This statement is not hyperbole: since that press release in September of 2020, we have received more phone calls for the Alberta Premium Cask Strength than any other product over the entirety of this year. It was annoying to me, and Kensington Wine Market because we had been telling people that this was a great bottling since last year. Then all of the sudden some guy puts out a whisky rating book he calls a bible and the whole world goes mad for it. That is the way of things I guess!

The takeaway from all of this should be twofold:

  1. Alberta Distillers makes world-class Rye Whisky and has been doing so for a long time
  2. If you wait for a creep in a Panama Hat to tell you what to drink, you will probably be too late to buy a bottle.

Anyhow!

This shouldn't be all about Alberta Distillers. After all, it was Shelter Point Distillery that had the foresight to source this Rye at five years old and mature it for another six years before it was bottled.
Located on a farm halfway between Comox and Campbell River on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Shelter point has been laying down spirit in casks to eventually become whisky since June of 2011. They grow and harvest much of the barley used from their own farm.

Patrick Evans is a third-generation farmer whose family has been farming in the Comox Valley of British Columbia since the turn of the 20th Century. He is now joined in the business by at least one of his three daughters and his son-in-law Jacob. Patrick purchased the land that is now Shelter Point Farm and Distillery in 2005. Situated along the coast of Vancouver Island where the Oyster River meets the sea, it was formerly a University of British Columbia research farm with a large dairy barn. That dairy barn now serves as cask warehousing and barley storage.

Back in September of 2017, Andrew, Curt and I made the trek to visit the distillery, and with that visit selected a few Shelter Point casks for Kensington Wine Market. This includes our own Shelter Point Single Malt KWM Cask and our first Shelter Point Rye KWM Cask.

In a somewhat backwards move compared to other craft distilleries that have popped up in the time since Shelter Point began making whisky, the distillery just started releasing their own Shelter Point Gin in the summer of 2019.



Consistent distillation and constant experimentation seem to be the name of the game for Shelter Point Distillery. They have been releasing very good single malt whisky since 2016, and the lineup has grown to include limited batches in different styles since then. We just received Smoke Point Batch 2 not that long ago - which is Shelter Point whisky finished in ex-Islay quarter casks. The Forbidden is another recent release - a wheat whisky that was matured for 5 and a half years. Then there is The Collective, which was created for a marriage of both wheat and malt whisky casks. Beyond that, there are other releases that we haven't even seen in Alberta - including the very recent and very intriguing Shelter Point Ripple Rock.

There always seems to be something exciting going on at Shelter Point, and we feel very fortunate to get as many of their releases as we do at Kensington Wine Market. Now, let's dive into the single cask rye that they matured and then bottled exclusively for our shop!

Shelter Point Rye KWM Cask #346

Also available in 50ml Mini Bottle form

Evan's Tasting Note

Nose: Lemons and limes, tobacco leaf, furniture polish, cinnamon sticks, cedar planks, over-steeped tea, burnt sugars, chilli oil, and a combination of dill pickle plus salt and vinegar potato chips.

Palate: Explosive! Hickory, cinnamon heart candies, fresh ginger, maraschino cherries, licorice tea (over-steeped again) vanilla extract, candy canes,  Angostura bitters, fresh stalks of dill and fennel, along with a touch of chilli oil and apple cider vinegar.

Finish: Big and chewy with plenty of oak, spices and caramelized sugars sticking around.

Comment: Our first Shelter Point Rye cask was big too, but had the balance and finesse of a ballet dancer. This is one is more akin to a bull in a china shop. It isn't about balance, it is about devil may care boldness and crazy fun.

Two KWM Casks in a row. Wow. Not to spoil anything, but I don't think we will be going for three in a row tomorrow! Maybe it will still be a high strength whisky though... Time will tell!

Cheers,
Evan
evan@kensingtonwinemarket.com
Twitter and Instagram: @sagelikefool

 

This entry was posted in Store, Whisky, Tastings, KWM Whisky Calendar 2020, Whisky Calendars

 

 

Recent Posts
Archives

Categories