Dusty Thursday: Canadian Club, 100 proof "Export Strength"

February 25, 2016 Eric Burke

A bottle of Canadian Club 100 proof. When I bought it, had a thick layer of dust on it.

Back in July of 2014 I reviewed a bottle of Canadian Club. It was fine, a bit delicate. I rated it a meh, having this to say about it:

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with this whisky. And, if you love delicate flavors, I can see this being a nice inexpensive bottle to keep on hand. I prefer my whisky to be a bit more in-your-face and not so eager to please so, although I wouldn’t turn down a glass if offered, I doubt I’ll be buying this one again.”

I’ve reviewed a few more Canadian Club whiskies since then. None were bad. They tended to range from “I really like this” to “meh.” So it was with more than a small bit of excitement when a friend of mine gifted me a bottle of Canadian Club 100 proof as a belated Christmas gift. It sounded like the perfect answer to my main complaint about the base release. Excellent!

But there was bad news. This bottle was one of the few that were left. My friend told me he thought that it had been discontinued. It isn’t on either the Canadian or US website for Canadian Club as a product or on Davin’s site. And I couldn’t find any other info on the expression in any of the other sources I normally check. So, I’m forced to believe him. Either that or it is released in such limited quantities as to be next to impossible to find anyway.

Canadian Club 100 proof Export Strength

Purchase info: 14.99 for a 750 mL bottle, Top Valu Liquor, Columbia Heights, MN

Details: 50% ABV, 6 years old.

Nose: Strong solvent odors off the bat, followed by floral cherries, wet stone and delicate oak.

Mouth: Bright and tingly in the mouth. Sweet and floral with strong vanilla and mineral notes.

Finish: Nice heat with lingering brown sugar and mineral notes.

Thoughts: Oh man! Do I like this better than the base release! It has the same delicate flavors but adds a little heat to the mix. I opened the bottle my friend gave me the night I received it and I’ll admit, the next day I went up to the store and bought another one…and then yesterday I went back and bought one more. I left one on the shelf for the next guy though. It seemed only fair. Though the next time I’m up there, I’ll be stopping in to see if it’s still on the shelf and if it is…that bottle is mine. Because I’m very sad to have discovered this after it seems to have gone away.

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Forty Creek: Three Grain Harmony 2015

February 18, 2016 Eric Burke

If it hasn’t been made perfectly clear in the past, I like trying new whiskies. So when my friend (and patron) Rick in Canada offered to pick me up a bottle of Forty Creek’s annual limited release when he got his, I jumped at the chance. We had a little fun with it and did a bottle swap. I got him a US only release and he got me this.

I love friends. And Whiskey Friends make the best friends.

Forty Creek: Three Grain Harmony 2015

Purchase Info: I got this in a bottle swap, but it looks like the LCBO listed it for roughly $70 Canadian. Of course, it is long gone.

Details: Bottle number: 3764, 43% ABV

Nose: Toffee and dried fruits followed by notes of faintly smoky oak.

Mouth: This has a wonderfully soft mouthfeel that balances a sneaky spiciness. Butterscotch, dried fruits, baking spices and hints of vanilla.

Finish: Medium length finish with lingering dried fruit and a gentle heat.

Thoughts: This is a fine example of a product produced by a Master of the blender’s art. It is an amazingly well put together whisky. And while ordinarily the pronounced dried fruit note would turn me off, in this case it was tasty enough that it worked. I enjoyed this quite a bit and those who normally enjoy dried fruit notes should enjoy it even more.

Thanks Rick!

Wiser's Legacy

January 29, 2016 Eric Burke

Early in my fanatical, must-try-everything phase of whisky exploration, I was offered the chance to blind taste a bunch of Canadian whiskies on Twitter along with author Davin De Kergommeaux and an international group of whisky fans and bloggers. As I was eager to try all the things, I jumped at the chance. Among other things, this experience taught me that there is some really good whisky coming out of Canada.

Today's whisky was not in that group. But one of it's sibling was. Though Wiser's Red Letter was only available in Canada, it showed me that I really needed to be paying more attention to the stuff that was crossing our northern border. I knew Red Letter was a special whisky, so I went in search of another whisky that was a little more readily available.

I found it in Wiser's Legacy. One sip and I was in love. Due to the nature of the try-all-the-whiskies phase I was in, I fooled around with a lot of different whiskies. I'd buy a bottle, we'd have some fun, but eventually something else would catch my eye and I'd move on. Not so with the Legacy. With Legacy, I knew I'd found a whisky to settle down with.

Until rumors started popping up that Legacy was being pulled back to a Canada-only release. The rumor went that what was in the States was all that was going to be there. I nearly cried. Instead I did the one thing that I normally never do. I bought up enough bottles that I would be assured a supply should the rumors be true. Now, a few years later, it seems that that rumor was just that. But, from that point on, I've always had at least one "buffer bottle" in the closet to go with my one open bottle. And once a bottle is emptied, I buy another so I have a supply as long as possible.

It's a comforting thing knowing that no matter what happens, you will always have at least one more bottle of that one you wanted to settle down with.

Wiser's Legacy

Purchase info: I've bought so many, but one bottle I still have a receipt for says: $42.99 for a 750 mL bottle at Surdyk's, Minneapolis, MN.

Details: 45% ABV.

Nose: Bubble gum, spearmint, hints of baking spice.

Mouth: Nice spicy rye tingle, mint, delicate oak and baking spices with more bubble gum underneath.

Finish: rye spice, mint, bubble gum and a gentle heat that lingers.

Thoughts: This has been my favorite Canadian whisky for quite some time and no matter how many I buy, it continues to maintain that top spot. It is delicate with just the right amount of heat. Sweet, but also spicy. Amazingly well-balanced with well integrated flavors. I always have at least one bottle of this in reserve (though normally two).

J.P. Wiser's Double Still Rye

October 27, 2015 Eric Burke

If you are a fan of more than just bourbon, you’ve noticed that non-bourbon whiskey folks sometimes make a big deal out of what kind of still they are using. Whether it is a column or pot still. How many times it is run through said still. Certain scotches even advertise the length of the neck of their pot stills.

And while I suppose that such things can make a difference, I’d love to see a real side by side of whiskey distilled in a pot still to whiskey distilled in a column still to the same proof, aged in the same locations for the same amount of time and blended to the same flavor profile, etc. In any case people much smarter than me care about these things so I mention this as a way of introducing tonight’s review.

J.P. Wiser’s Double Still Rye is a Canada-only product that was sent to me in the same box as the Wiser’s Hopped I reviewed last week. It is a blend of two Canadian rye whiskies. One distilled in a pot still, one in a column still.

J.P. Wiser’s Double Still Rye

Purchase info: This was obtained from a friend in Canada, but it can be purchased at the LCBO for roughly $30 Canadian for a 750 mL bottle.

Details: 43.4% ABV

Nose: Caramel candy, mint and just a hint of pickle juice.

Mouth: This has a soft mouthful with a nice tingle that runs down the sides of the mouth. More caramel candy, some cloves and a nice nuttiness.

Finish: A lingering cool minty tingle paired with a nice nuttiness.

Thoughts: This is a nice whiskey. It is not my favorite product released under the Wiser’s name, but if it were available in the US, I’d probably pick it up now and again as a change of pace. As it is, it’s a Canada-only release and I won’t be making a run for the border to grab it. In fact, it might not make the cut to come home with me next time I go. It’s a tasty whisky, full flavored. It’s just nothing to go out of your way to obtain if it isn’t readily available.

JP Wiser's Hopped Whisky

October 20, 2015 Eric Burke

I spend a lot of time reading about whisky. Mostly bourbon, but I branch out in my reading too. I like Rye and Canadian so I read about those as well. A few times a day, I share the ones I find interesting on Twitter. Back in August I read about something interesting that was coming out in Canada.

Looks like another one to add to the shopping list next time I travel to Canada -> JP Wiser’s Hopped Whisky (40%) http://t.co/QYpax3qFnA
— Eric Burke (@arok) August 21, 2015

I thought a hopped whisky sounded interesting. I know that the most general description of whisky is distilled beer. And I know that certain distillers, like Maker’s Mark, use hops in their yeast. So it didn’t seem like too far of a stretch to see a hop flavor in the whisky itself. If you follow the link above, it sounds like Wiser’s uses the equivalent of dry-hopping a beer (adding the hops after the beer has cooled) to minimize the bitterness hops can provide.

In any case, I assumed that I would put it on the list for the next time I visited Canada and that would be that. But wouldn’t you know it, a friend of mine near Toronto decided it would be fun to send me some to see what my reaction would be.

JP Wiser’s Hopped whisky

Purchase Info: gift from a Canadian friend, but it sells at the LCBO for $27-$29 Canadian.

Details: 40% ABV

Nose: Sweetness and hops combine to resemble nothing less than dry erase markers. After a while I get a lot of cocoa on the nose.

Mouth: Sweet, chocolate, bready. This is a lot like a chocolate stout with no carbonation and a thinner mouthfeel. There is also a touch of maple.

Finish: Gentle warmth with more chocolate.

Thoughts: I like this a lot. Chocolate stout is one of my favorite beer styles and this hits a lot of the same notes. Aside from the carbonation, it’s almost more like drinking a beer than a whisky. Looking forward to trying this in a couple whisky cocktails to see what it does.

A vacation souvenir: Wiser's Red Letter

August 6, 2015 Eric Burke

A bottle of Wiser's Red Letter Canadian Whisky and the box it comes in.

If I were to tell you that I spent the past weekend in Michigan, you probably wouldn’t say much to me. You might wonder why, but Michigan is a nice place so you might not even say that. If I were to tell you that I was in a part of Michigan that is farther west than Chicago, farther north than Toronto, Montreal, or even Quebec City and only 20 miles east of Minnesota you might start to think I’m crazy. (Unless you are either from Michigan or a geography nerd that is, then all bets are off.) But crazy or not that is where I spent last weekend and the first part of this week.

You see there is a giant island in the northern part of Lake Superior called Isle Royale. It’s part of Michigan though it is closer to both Ontario and Minnesota than it is to mainland Michigan. (Thank old treaties and compromises for that bit of geographical trickery.) The island is also a National Park called, naturally enough, Isle Royale National Park.

The Park, being an island, is only accessible by boat, either your own or one run by a National Park Service concessionaire. If, like me, you don’t own your own very large boat you are left with the concessionaire ferries or seaplanes as your only option. You can go from two ports in Michigan or from one in Minnesota.

The port I chose was the one in Minnesota. Which is just about as far north as you can go along the Minnesota coast of Lake Superior. You are so close to the Canadian border that Verizon just tells you “No Service” because the only towers you are touching are international ones. To me, this is not a big deal. Part of the appeal of this vacation was the lack of cell service and internet. I needed desperately to get away from it all for a few days. And since this park gets fewer visitors in a year than Yellowstone gets in a day, away is exactly where I would be.

The other big part of the appeal, going hand in hand with the first, was our proximity to our Northern Neighbor. Unlike many native Minnesotans, I have no particular enmity to Canada. In fact, the one time I visited, I sorta wished I could have stayed longer. Of course, that time I was in Toronto. This time I was closest to Thunder Bay.

Every person to whom I mentioned I might be stopping in Thunder Bay asked the same question: “Why?” The answer depending on if you were another whiskey fan or a border patrol agent was either “Canadian Whisky” or “sightseeing” respectively. You see Thunder Bay, being in Ontario is served by the LCBO. Now government controlled access to liquor has many drawbacks, but one of the benefits to this particular system is an online inventory lookup that is broken down by store. Meaning that before I left, I could look to see if there was any particularly tasty Canada only whisky that I might hop across the border and bring back with me.

And find one I did. A while back, I took a part in a few Twitter-based whiskey tastings in support of Davin de Kergommeaux’s book on Canadian Whisky. One of the treats that were sent out was one Wiser’s Red Letter. Even though I had already come around on my early views of Canadian whisky at this point, the Red Letter sample was the one that firmly cemented Canadian whisky as something I would proclaim myself a fan of. Putting it in a group that had until that point only contained Bourbon and American Rye.

So when I looked online and noticed that there was one store in Thunder Bay that had two bottles of it, I knew that I would be spending the later hours of Friday afternoon making the 50 minute trip between Grand Portage, Minnesota and Thunder Bay, Ontario to make sure that one of them would be coming home with me.

Wiser’s Red Letter - 2014 Release

Purchase Info: $99.95 Canadian (~$76 US as of 8/6/15), 750 mL. LCBO, Arthur Street, Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Details: 45% ABV. 2014 Release. Non-chill filtered. “Virgin Oak Finished.”

Nose: Delicate and creamy. Honey and brown sugar. Orange oil. Cinnamon candies.

Mouth: Creamy with a nice velvety mouthfeel. Brown sugar sweetness. Cinnamon candy spice, with a tingle reminiscent of the same. Baseball card gum (because I’m old enough to have bought baseball card packs that came with gum back in the 80s). Hints of orange oil and wooden pencil.

Finish: The cinnamon candy tingle sticks around for a little while before being replaced by a nice lingering sweetness.

Thoughts: After sadly realizing that Red Letter was not sold in the US, I tried a few of the Wiser’s products that were. One of which, the Legacy, quickly became my go to Canadian whisky. If you have had Wiser’s Legacy, the best description of Red Letter I can give you is: "that, only more so." It hits all the same notes with me, it just hits them harder (hmmm…realizing I never actually did a review of Legacy, will have to remedy that soon).

I would say this was certainly worth the roughly 2 hour detour across a lightly used border crossing into Canada. Was it worth $76 US? Considering my favorite Canadian whiskey goes for about $40 US and is very similar, sure. Now for those same reasons, I probably wouldn’t buy a second bottle of Red Letter at $100 Canadian, even if I could, but I don’t regret buying this one. It made a nice vacation splurge.

Collingwood 21 Year Old Rye Canadian Whisky

July 30, 2015 Eric Burke

Collingwood 21 year old rye. I first heard of this while conversing with Davin de Kergommeaux during the Twitter tastings that were held to promote his book Canadian Whisky: The Portable Expert. Now, Davin loves Canadian whisky so you need to take his enthusiasm for the category into effect when interpreting his comments on a particular whisky. And he was really enthusiastic about this. After doing a little reading online, I took his advice. “If you see it, buy two” to heart. It was getting close to Christmas 2013 at this point and I was doing a little shopping.

Yes, for others…but for me too.

We were in the area so I stopped off at Surdyk’s, a liquor store in Minneapolis to see if they had this particular treat. The parking lot had zero spaces and the streets were full of snow so I sent my wife in. She nicely bought me one bottle…

I forgot to tell her to get two. I didn’t say anything until we were on our way home. Mostly because I was sick of circling the block waiting for either her to come out or for a parking space to open up. After listening to the fact that Davin suggested we get two, she agreed to stop off somewhere on the way home to see if someone else had one. Luckily, they did.

Bottle badge stating: "toasted maplewood mellowed.

But what is it? Collingwood whisky is a brand owned by Brown-Forman. This is a limited edition line extension of that brand. It is a 21 year old 100% malted rye whisky that was then vatted in a container containing maple wood staves and allowed to rest there for a year. It is produced at the Canadian Mist Distillery in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada. (See map below.) Having begun life as an experiment, what’s on the shelf is all there is. Even if Brown-Forman wanted to release more, we’d have to wait almost 20 years from now for there to be more to release.

As of today, it is still on Minnesota shelves. But, as this was a one time only production run, ever since then I’ve always had at least two bottles of this on hand. One open (or soon to be opened) and at least one in reserve. When I open one, I run to buy another so I always have a buffer for when it eventually runs out. To say I like this is a bit of an understatement.

Collingwood 21 Year Old Rye

Purchase Info: $54.99, 750 mL. Surdyk’s, Minneapolis, MN (Dec 14, 2013, I’ve bought this often, so we’ll go just with the first one as it is roughly the same price today at other stores.)

Details: 21 year old (age stated), 40% ABV.

Nose: Clothes that have been drying outside on the clothesline. Black tea. Faint hints of dill. After some time strong vanilla and caramel develop.

Mouth: Delicate. Sweet with hints of maple. Very strong floral presence. Vanilla bean ice cream. Some oak.

Finish: Delicate and gentle. Black tea (thinking unsweetened ice tea where your ice has melted), some mint, some caramel. A bit floral.

Thoughts: This is the third or fourth bottle I’ve bought of this and there is still one in my closet so that should tell you I love this one. I will admit that it isn’t for everyone—some people I know compare it to drinking perfume—so see if you can grab a taste of it before you drop almost $60 on it. To me, the disparate notes meld so well that this can be truly described as an exquisite whisky, but that's me. It isn’t for everyone.

Crown Royal Hand Selected Barrel

June 9, 2015 Eric Burke

Are you one of those folks who have decided that Canadian Whisky would be interesting if only it had a bit more oomph? If it were served at a proof above the bare minimum to be called whisky? Some sort of single barrel pick that hadn’t had all the rough edges blended out of it?

Well, this is your lucky day. Crown Royal has recently expanded it’s Hand Selected Barrel program from Texas to the rest of the US. This whisky is released at 51.5% ABV. It’s a Single Barrel release of the Coffey Rye whisky. The Coffey Rye is one of the 50 whiskies that make up the standard Crown Royal blend. It is a Canadian rye (not the same definition as US straight rye) produced on a Coffey still.

Saturday was my lucky day. When I wandered into Ace Spirits, I noticed that they had participated in the Hand-Selected Barrel program. I don’t normally review them this quickly, but I bumped this to the head of the pack, just in case you are local and decide to go get one for yourself. So should you got get one?

Crown Royal Hand Selected Barrel

Purchase info: $64.99, 750 mL. Ace Spirits, Hopkins, MN.

Details: 51.5% ABV

Nose: Earthy and sweet. Bubblegum, baking spices and tobacco.

Mouth: Soft and velvety. The proof brings a lot of tingle to this. Baseball card bubble gum, cinnamon, clove, anise, buckwheat honey.

Finish: On the short side of medium. More bubble gum fading to a nice bitterness.

Thoughts: This is a bottle that benefits from air. I tried doing my tasting right away and it was really just heat and bubble gum. I was extremely disappointed in it, especially for what I paid. I did notice that the sample in the store didn’t seem to be quite so one-note. And guessing that the bottle in the store wasn’t freshly opened, I poured myself another sample and then let it sit for an hour or so. After sitting, the nose and the mouth opened up considerably, becoming much more complex. This whisky is a touch hot, though I wouldn’t recommend adding any water. Even a little destroys the mouth feel and really lessens the flavors. Anecdotally, this seems to trend sweet. My wife overheard sales people at the Party Source telling folks that theirs tasted like marshmallows. Mine tastes like old baseball card bubble gum so there is a certain candy theme.

Bottom line: I like it and while it’s interesting to taste a bottle that goes into a major blend, it is really expensive for what it is. I’d be really happy with this at $40, but at $65 I probably won’t be buying it again.

Blog

Canadian Club 100 proof Export Strength

Forty Creek: Three Grain Harmony 2015

Wiser's Legacy

J.P. Wiser’s Double Still Rye

JP Wiser’s Hopped whisky

Wiser’s Red Letter - 2014 Release

Collingwood 21 Year Old Rye

Crown Royal Hand Selected Barrel