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Inside Ale Street
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| Spirits: Meet Mister Smooth An Introduction to Canadian Whisky |
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| Written by Lew Bryson | ||||||
| Thursday, 31 January 2008 | ||||||
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Ever had Canadian whisky? Chances are that if you’re 40 or older, you’ve at least had a 7-and-7 at some point, the last generation’s equivalent of a malternative: sweet and alcohol-laden, easy to gulp down. Maybe you got a bottle of Crown Royal, the iconic crown-shaped bottle in the famous purple bag.
Or maybe not. Canadian’s been in a long slow decline as the typical drinker gets older and older, so maybe you’ve never had any, just watched your dad take a couple of belts. Dad drinks it? Hmmm…maybe I’ll have a small batch bourbon or a single malt scotch instead of that bargain stuff Dad drinks. Canadian whisky’s out to change your mind. The tag line of a new ad campaign from Canadian Club celebrates that age factor: “Damn Right your dad drank it,” the ads say, with some vintage photos to remind you that Dad was a happening cat like you, once upon a time, and all it took was a glass of CC and ginger ale. Canadian whisky’s jumping on the cocktail culture, looking to remind people how easy it is to mix up something that’s just as easy to drink. Canadian whisky has been tagged as “brown vodka;” the new thought seems to be yeah, that’s right, Canadian whisky mixes like mad, give it a shot. There are also some new Canadian whisky specialty brands that may do for the category what small batch did for bourbon. People drink regular market Canadian whisky in a variety of ways, but usually in a cocktail or a highball, which can be as simple as that 7-and-7: a good slug of Seagram’s 7 in a glass of 7-Up on ice. Done. When I was tending bar 25 years ago, I mixed a lot of Canadian Club and grapefruit juice, Black Velvet and Coke, Crown Royal and soda. Canadian whisky’s light character makes it a real easy mixer for someone who wants a bit more flavor than a vodka cocktail. What makes Canadian whisky different, other than being from Canada? Canadian is blended, all of it, usually with a high-proof grain spirit, a “flavor” whisky that’s lower proof and gives the blend some backbone, and then the thing that truly sets Canadian whisky apart: up to 9.09 percent of the blend can be…other stuff. That can include other whiskies, or brandy, or even port or sherry. After blending it is aged in oak, in Canadian warehouses. Take that basic idea and fiddle with it — much like bourbon distillers have done by selecting particular barrels from particular warehouses, or Scotch distillers have done by only using the straight malt from one distillery — and you’ve got something special. Canadian distillers are the last category to make a run at the specialty niche, but some very nice things have started to appear. One of those is 40 Creek, a whisky made by a winemaker. John Hall made wine at his Kittling Ridge Winery in Ontario, and he also made eau de vie. One day he was looking at the copper pot stills and started thinking about how he could make whisky more like eau de vie and brandy in image. After thought, he took action. “I approached whiskey distilling more like the way I did my winemaking,” Hall says. “You ferment and age the various grape varieties, and that’s what I did with the rye, barley, and corn. The mixed mash bill had no logic for me.” Hall did something fundamentally different, and yet classically Canadian: he made three different whiskies from the three different grains, aged them, and then blended them. He messed about with the barrels, too: the rye distillate goes in lightly charred barrels, because Hall “wanted the spicy fruitiness of the rye to come through.” The malt whisky went in medium char, and the lighter corn in heavily charred ones. “I use new barrels, toasted in different levels,” he said. “Then I round it off by finishing them in barrels I used for my own sherry.” Surprise: Crown Royal’s doing the same kind of thing. The new Crown Royal Cask No. 16 is finished in cognac casks, and the effect is noticeable and impressive. I tasted it for the first time in October at WhiskyFest New York, and I was sending people to their table all night. That’s Canadian? No way! Way. “Fifteen years ago, if you told people there was beer in Canada besides Molson and Labatt, they’d have thought you were crazy,” said John Hall. “Now look at all the small brewers. It’s going to be the same with whisky.” Good times, folks. Whether it’s a smooth mixer with your dad, or a flavorful specialty for yourself, make the smooth move and try some Canadian whisky.
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