Infectious Charm. Devastating Wit. Below Average Looks.
Being by far the biggest advocate for Canadian whisky in the club, I still have my criticisms. That being said, I don’t think I can often blame Canada for these nit picks of mine. One of the said nit picks is primarily a legal one in the famed “9.09%” rule for Canadian whisky sold in... Continue Reading →
For today’s review I was preparing to snarkily opine about yet another US company (a Californian winery, in today’s case) sourcing a good whisky from somewhere else, bottling it themselves and slapping some historical figure’s name from the 1800’s on their label and charging a horse’s hind end load for it. It would be a... Continue Reading →
Meanwhile, up in Canada, Diageo’s small, heel nipping startup distillery called Crown Royal released Northern Harvest Rye whisky earlier this year. Should be interesting, as Canadian whisky has been trying to grow from the top down, meaning the premium category has seen quite a few new bottlings in recent years. Crown Royal is doing something... Continue Reading →
We’re doing a review of Crown Royal today. Why? I have 17 million reasons why. As recently as 2013, 17 million cases of Canadian whisky sold in the United States, Canada’s biggest market. And the top selling Canadian whisky is, you guessed it ace, Crown Royal Canadian blended whisky. And by golly, we will offer... Continue Reading →
You can thank Dave Broom for all of this. “This” being the Spokane Whiskey Club’s periodic focus on Canadian whisky. Canadian whisky as a category has responded well in terms of growth and style in recent years, but only after a century of existing somewhere at the bottom popularity wise. Consequently, most introductory whisky books... Continue Reading →
Depending on the choice of liquor joint, at least here in Spokane, a curious pass through any given Canadian aisle evokes a gentle weeping at the lack of quality choices. It is not as bleak as it used to be, since maybe five years ago I would say this category was circling the drain into oblivion, but is now attempting a... Continue Reading →
Apparently, we Yanks in the US have a sweet tooth like you wouldn’t believe. We put sugar in things where it most certainly does not belong. We put sugar in bread. We put sugar in Wheat Thins. We even sweeten up water when we can. Naturally, we like our beverages this way as well,... Continue Reading →
Ask any craft distiller about the difficulty of launching a new, competitive brand of whisky into the marketplace and they will likely start crying. While a tall order, what’s even more impossible is growing a sluggish whisky category entirely. During the whisky boom of the last five years or so, Canadian whisky certainly saw its... Continue Reading →
Canadian whisky can be innovative. Even better is when innovation can be purchased for $28. Collingwood Canadian Whisky from Brown & Forman is distilled at Canadian Mist Distillery in Ontario, Canada. The innovation mentioned comes from the fact that Collingwood is the only sugar maple mellowed whisky in Canada and at the time of this... Continue Reading →
If you are a whisky company as big as Crown Royal, you can pretty much do whatever you want. One of the biggest factors in this freedom is the 2 million barrels of whisky stock currently aging in their warehouses. Crown Royal Cask No. 16 is one such recent creation from Andrew Mackay, Master Blender... Continue Reading →
Greetings. We continue on with our first venture into the whisky of Canada with Crown Royal Reserve. Formerly “Special Reserve” but now the less special “Reserve” is the premium version of the ever popular Crown Royal Canadian whisky. The Spokane Whisky Club is now including Canada in our regular rotation of styles we review throughout... Continue Reading →
So here’s the deal with Canadian whisky, dear readers. Our close, personal friends living north of the border keep most of the good stuff to themselves. To the best of our vast and ever reaching knowledge, this has more to do with the legality and process of which goods pass between our nations than it... Continue Reading →
Whistle Pig Straight Rye Whiskey is quite the curious bottling. Specifically, this curiosity is because of the numerous hats Whistle Pig wears. This Dave Pickerell selected rye comes from Canada and is bottled at an impressive 50% ABV. Our expectations are certainly peaked for a whisky that has been categorized as “voluptuous” and “requiring its own... Continue Reading →
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