Cigar Weekly

January 26th, 2009

By Doug Kuebler (jazznut)

Cigar Weekly Managing Editor

 

One of the positive legacies of the period from Prohibition to the present day has to be the fascination of Americans and Canadians with each other’s whiskies. Canadian Club and Crown Royal owe much of their success to an incredibly receptive drinking clientele in the United States, its desires rooted in an era of efficacious smuggling channels and speakeasies. And although the Canadian market for Bourbon may not match its more southerly counterpart, countless measures of the American spirit have still been served in homes and watering holes from Vancouver to Saint John’s to White Horse, never mind occasionally incorporated into domestic liquors. The cachet of a beverage made elsewhere seems destined to please eager palates and blenders alike.

 

 

I can well remember my brother, during his visits home to Montreal from a professional stint in Windsor, Ontario, exposing my rather tender (at that time) taste buds to the delights of Jim Beam Green Label, poured neat from a bottle he’d brought from Detroit. That 26-ouncer represented the first of many. He loved the stuff! And if I wasn’t quite so sure, I still trusted his judgement and continued to sip.

 

It took me a while to come back to Bourbon. But when I did, Jim Beam Black Label and Maker’s Mark made up for lost time in very able fashion. From that point on, there was no stopping the Kentucky Express, be the pour of the moment as pedestrian as Rebel Yell or as uncompromising as George T. Stagg.

 

 

Oddly enough, my taste for Canadian whisky took even longer to develop. Something to do with an inferiority complex many Canadians harbour when it comes to comparing their native brew with spirits from the other side of the border or ocean, I suppose. Plus the fact that my dad was an inveterate Scotch drinker, and darned if the liquor cupboard at our house wasn’t going to be my pot of gold! Scotch it was, then, until I rediscovered the subtle, lively complexities that lie just beneath that all too familiar smooth sheen most Canadian whiskies display.

  

Nowadays, my palate is all over the place. And, the plethora of single malt Scotch stockpiled in my cabinet notwithstanding, I often find myself reaching for an American or Canadian whisky. “There’s nothing quite like a change of pace to awaken one’s senses,” I say.

 

 

The approaches most Canadian whisky and American Bourbon producers take in crafting their respective spirits reflect consensus and divergence. Distillers on each side of the border love to work with corn, rye, wheat and barley. And the ubiquitous patent (or continuous) still as yet handily outnumbers the more traditional pot still (or alembic) in both countries. But when it comes to oak barrel maturation, Bourbon makers opt for the fresh and charred route while Canadians take the anything goes turnoff. Not only that. Where American producers seem increasingly smitten with the marketing of small batch and single barrel issues, Canadian distillers persist – by and large – in extolling the virtues of blending, blending and more blending. Individuality and variability versus recognisability and consistency, it would appear.

 

No matter. Excellent examples abound from both nations. For this reason, Americans and Canadians owe it to themselves to keep the cross-border traffic moving, and to promote the virtues of their whiskies throughout the rest of the world. After all, variety is the spice of life. And from Bardstown to Gimli, good things are happening!

 

 

Two for your consideration:

 

Colour: Full gold tending to amber.

Nose: Tropical fruit salad. Dry roasted nuts. A hint of vanilla.

Palate: Crisp, clean attack leading to succulence. Honey dribbled on whole wheat toast. Pears. The spicy oak influence effortlessly intertwines with the bittersweet nature of the spirit, creating tiny ripples of rapier-like intensity that spread across the glossy textural surface.

Finish: Long and calm.

 

Colour: Deep amber-vermilion.

Nose: Cherries and sultanas in caramel syrup. Oak resin laced with mint. Orange peel. Baking spices. Musk.

Palate: A warming grip right from the ‘green light’. Spiced toffee. Seville orange marmalade. Mint. Liquorice. Tremendous impact from the oak is followed by a sensation of apple pie, then dryness.

Finish: Doesn’t want to.

 

 

Until next time, happy sipping!

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