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The State of Canada's Whisky

Posted on March 24, 2025

by Evan

A focus on Canadian Content seems like a good idea given the current political climate, doesn't it?

The current uncertainty we all live in sucks for a multitude of reasons. It is hard to focus just on whisky when talking about that - but hey - whisky is both my job and my passion, so here we go!

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There was a time when Canada was the focal point for much of what happened with Whisky anywhere in the world. Some of the biggest brands in whisky and spirits were owned by a Canadian Multinational Conglomerate. The big whisky companies of the world today - especially powerhouses Diageo and Pernod Ricard - would not be what they are without Seagram's. The company had a massive footprint both nationally and globally for a majority of the 20th Century.

Seagram's was the largest owner of booze brands in the world in the 1990s. Crown Royal? That was Seagram's. So was Martel Cognac, Absolut Vodka, Four Roses, Makers Mark, Fireball, Chivas Regal, The Glenlivet, Glen Grant, BenRiach (back then without the capital R), and many, many more. Seagram's was absolutely massive, also having minority control of companies outside of alcohol at its peak such as DuPont. In the mid-90s, the company's interests in DuPont were sold off and then MCA/Universal Pictures was acquired.

Seagram's went under in the year 2000 - now a quarter-century ago. Its companies and assets were mostly split between contemporary alcohol behemoths Diageo and Pernod Ricard.

There is a lot to be proud of with Canadian Whisky. Its history now goes back more than 225 years. The largest distillery in Canada is also the largest in all of North America: Hiram Walker Distillery in Windsor, Ontario. It was founded back in 1858 and currently pumps out around 55 million litres of alcohol annually. That means it produces as much spirit than Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, and Macallan every year.

Canadian Whisky as a category is still a big deal internationally. Crown Royal is one of the top 20 best-selling whiskies in the world.

Much of the lustre and appeal of Canadian Whisky has been diminished over the past 25 years. Much of this is thanks to a lot of global competition becoming more available on our shelves. The whisky boom we have been lucky enough to live in for a good deal of that period has created much more competition. Other whisky styles and categories such as Single Malt Scotch, Irish Whiskey, Bourbon and other American Whiskey, etc. have seen exponentially increasing sales and consumer attention over that time.

Long gone are the days when your average liquor store whisky shelf contained Crown Royal, R&R, Alberta Premium, and maybe four or five other whiskies such as Jack Daniel's, Jim Beam, Grants, J&B Rare. Possibly, there were bottles of Glenlivet or Glenfiddich 12 available if ...

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Day 25 - KWM 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar - G&M Ardmore 1997 KWM Cask

Posted on January 30, 2025

Merry Christmas! Day 25 — G&M CC Ardmore 1997 KWM Cask 5564

by Evan

Merry Christmas and happy holiday’s everyone! Today marks the last dram in our 25 Drample-long journey through the KWM 2024 Not An Advent Calendar. I hope you have enjoyed your whisky journey as much as I enjoy writing this posts and Andrew and I enjoy hosting the recap tastings!

I hope you have found some new favourites along the way. I know I have! Here is my personal top 5:

Compass Box Flaming Heart 2022 – This is such a well balanced and complex peated dram. I will be said when it eventually leaves our shelves for good!
Nikka From The Barrel – This is the least expensive bottle in the entirety of this year’s Not An Advent Calendar, but it is great regardless of how Japanese it is or is not.
Ardnamurchan AD/11:16 KWM Cask – I love the quirky combination of fruit and smoke and creamy goodness.
That Boutique-Y Speyside #4 24-Year-Old KWM Cask – This has to be the most understated whisky in this year’s lineup, but the soft waxiness and orchard fruit notes that it offers are incredibly enticing.
Berry's Blended Malt #1 1999 – If only we had more of this to sell. I love this blend, even without knowing what it is made up of. Like the Nikka From The Barrel: Whatever it is, it is good!

What are your personal favourites? What would you change about the Not An Advent Calendar and the tastings for next year? If you have any questions or comments on this, you can contact me here. I cannot promise that all criticisms will be addressed, but we do love to hear what people have enjoyed and what they have not. We always make this calendars and chose the lineup based on what we are excited to share with others.

Before I get all sappy about that, and then end of things to taste in these boxes, let's talk about our very last dram. Say hello to the G&M CC Ardmore 1997 KWM Cask 5564!

Ardmore Distillery was founded in 1898, and since the beginning, its focus has been on peated whisky production. The Highland distillery was purpose-built to provide whisky for blending, as pretty much all distilleries were at the time. However, with Ardmore that hasn't changed much — even today, just about all of Ardmore's production is still being used for blending, trading stock, or selling. Ardmore features prominently in the Teacher’s Highland Cream Blended Scotch Whisky, as it has since its inception.

Only a small portion of the distillery’s Single Malt Scotch lands in official bottles released by Ardmore and its parent company Suntory. One of the reasons Ardmore is the heart of Teacher's Highland Cream and also sought after by independent bottlers is that just about all whisky pr...

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Day 24 - KWM 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar - Berry's Blended Malt #1 1999

Posted on December 24, 2024

Day 24 — Berry's Blended Malt #1 1999

by Evan

What can I say about this bottle? Pretty much everything I can factually tell you is right there on the label. This is a Blended Malt Scotch. It looks like the whisky within was distilled in 1999. It was bottled by Berry Bros. & Rudd.

So, there you have it! Shall we give it a taste?

Hold on a minute. I should probably stretch this out a bit more than that. Hmm.

Here is what Berry Bros. have typed on the back label:

“Berry Bros & Rudd have proud history in supplying Blends and Blended Malt dating back to the 19th Century. While our most notable Blend my have been Cutty Sark, introduced in 1923, over the years we’ve put together many different Blended Whiskies and vatted malts. This single cask Blended Malt is the latest in the long tradition.”

And here are their tasting notes:

“This fine blended malt offers lovely nutty notes with some delicate oak influence and enlivening citrus. The palate is round and lively with some dried fruit and gentle wood coming through. The finish is lingering, with a hint of spice and orange-citrus.”

Well, that totally clears things up, doesn’t it? A Single Cask Blended Malt Scotch. No provenance or background given on the specific malts inside. But hey, it is from 1999. And look here – it was aged in a hogshead, with a total of 324 bottles coming from said hogshead, at 50.5% ABV.

Berry Bros & Rudd was established wayyyy back in 1698. The company is the oldest wine merchant in the world, but it started its life as a coffee shop at No 3 St. James’s Street in London; a site that it still resides into this day.

Berry Bros & Rudd has done a lot and changed a lot over the past 325+ years, and it was indeed the creator and owner of Cutty Sark, which was first launched in 1923 (The Blended Scotch Whisky, not the ship). It was dubbed “the first lightly coloured whisky of exceptional quality”, and sold quite well, illicitly in the Prohibition era USA. Berry Bros & Rudd owned the popular Blended Scotch brand up until 2010, when they sold it to Edrington Group. Edrington in turn held on to the brand until only 2018, when they in turn sold it to La Martiniquaise-Bardinet. The French company also owns Glen Moray Distillery, which it procured from luxury brand company Luis Vuitton Moet Hennessy back in 2008.

What is in this Blended Malt? There have been plenty of ex-Edrington stock casks floating around over the past few years. That seems to be the term for Blended Malt casks from Edrington, the company that owns the Macallan, Highland Park, and Glenrothes distilleries. So if this bottle is one of those casks, this could very well contain two or all three of those di...

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Day 23 - KWM 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar - Roseisle 12 Year 2023 Special Release

Posted on December 23, 2024

Day 23 - Roseisle 12 Year 2023 Special Release

by Evan

Day 23 in our 2024 KWM Not An Advent Calendar brings us another distillery first! Say hello to the Roseisle 12 Year 2023 Special Release!

Roseisle is a very young distillery, but it is by no means a craft or quaint, tiny operation like many other young distilleries. It is an absolute behemoth owned by Diageo. It is the very model of a modern major distillery. Costing 40 million pounds to build, it opened in 2010. Right from the get-go, Roseisle’s annual alcohol output of 12.5 million litres made it the biggest malt distillery in Diageo’s portfolio. It also became the second-largest malt distillery by production in Scotland. Only Glenfiddich’s output eclipsed it at that time. In the nearly fifteen years since, Glenfiddich has gotten even larger, and it has been joined at the top production level-wise by Glenlivet. Both are now followed by the giant and latest Macallan Distillery which opened in 2019, with Roseisle now sitting fourth in production per annum, just ahead of Ailsa Bay and Glen Ord Distilleries.

A distillery started by the largest spirits maker in the world is going to work with a thoroughly different set of resources and goals. There was no need to produce gin or vodka or other spirits to fill the three-year plus gap that whisky production is on. Diageo was not forced to release a bunch of young Roseisle single malt to recoup costs. Whisky fans didn’t get a chance to taste Roseisle’s first single malt until the whisky we are tasting today was released in 2023. That’s right – this 12-year-old is the first official bottling of Roseisle Single Malt Scotch ever.

(Fort McMurray's Whisky Heathens discuss the Roseisle 12-Year-Old 2023 Special Release on YouTube)

Beyond Roseisle’s parent company having the finances to be patient, the reason it took this long for the first Single Malt Scotch release was also because that was never the distillery’s real purpose. Diageo built this massive distillery to provide single malt for their blends first and foremost, and that shows in how versatile the distillery was created to be. Many of Roseisle’s stills can be adjusted by using different condensers, fermentation times can be altered, and so on. If Diageo needs a full-bodied and robust single malt for its blends, Roseisle can do that. If a light and grassy style is called for, it can make that too.

Versatility is a remarkable thing, but it also makes it difficult for us to say what we are tasting today is indeed Roseisle’s signature style. If you are purpose-built to mimic others, can you even have your own personal style?

(Distillery or star ship? You make the call. Roseisle's continuing mission is to explore...

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Day 22 - KWM 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar - Ben Nevis 10 Year from SMOS

Posted on December 23, 2024

Day 22 - Single Malts Of Scotland Reserve Casks No.10 Ben Nevis 10-Year-Old

by Evan

Today’s whisky is a bit of an unofficial sequel to yesterday’s where we explored Nikka From The Barrel. How is this bottle possibly connected? Well, today we know for certain we will be tasting some Ben Nevis, and not just a Japanese-ish Whisky that might contain Ben Nevis. Say hello to the Ben Nevis 10 Year Old from the Single Malts Of Scotland Reserve Casks series.

As I mentioned yesterday, Ben Nevis Distillery is owned by Japan’s Nikka Whisky. Ben Nevis Distillery is in Fort William, within the Highlands. It lays near the foot of and is named after Ben Nevis - which is the highest mountain in the British Isles - rising to 1325 metres at its peak.

Nearby distilleries include Dalwhinnie Distillery, which is a little over an hour drive to the west. Oban Distillery is about a one hour and fifteen-minute drive to the south and west. Ardnamurchan is a bit further than that, taking you more than an hour and a half to drive west to from Ben Nevis.

This is how you can tell Ben Nevis is a Highland Distillery: you can’t throw a rock from its property and hit another nearby distillery neighbour like you nearly can in many parts of Speyside.

The distillery was originally founded in 1825 by “Long” John McDonald (I didn’t look up what the “Long” was in reference to, as I am sure the stories we can create in our own minds about it are much more exciting than whatever the truth might be. You are welcome for that.). The distillery did well enough over the years that it stayed in the McDonald family, being helmed by “Long” John’s son Donald P. McDonald (no word on if Donald had a nickname based on the length of something) after his passing. A second distillery was built close to Ben Nevis Distillery in 1878. This distillery was called Nevis Distillery, and it was merged into Ben Nevis in 1908.

In 1941, Ben Nevis fell in to Canadian hands when D. P. McDonald and Sons sold it to Joseph W Hobbs. Hobbs came by money honestly, the way most Canadian millionaires did at the time: by smuggling whisky and other alcohol into Prohibition era USA. Hobbs approach was to use a few ships he had purchased from the Canadian Navy – which didn’t need them so much right after World War I – and have them pick up crates full of Teacher’s Highland Cream and the like from Antwerp, Belgium. From there they would sail down the Atlantic and through the Panama Canal, then up to the coast of California. This crucial supply of aid would then be brought ashore by smaller boats and charitably disseminated to the parched and dry throats of the needy by benevolent and kind-hearted bootleggers.

(Joseph W. Hobbs — Picture from http...

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