Canadian Club Chairman's Select 100% Rye

The Blue Jays pulled off an almost unheard of comeback in the bottom of the ninth, capped by Steve Pearce’s second walk-off grand slam this week. Of course it all happened right after I turned off the TV to go out with my family.

To celebrate I decided tonight I would have something Canadian (it was Canadian Baseball Day today after all). And what is more Canadian than Canadian Club?

I originally got this bottle to help prepare myself for rye. I had won the BTAC lottery in 2014 and had purchased a bottle of Thomas Handy Rye. A tasting was set up at the home of @Talexander but I had very limited experience with 100% rye. So the week before the tasting I started with Alberta Premium, the AP25, the AP30 and finally I picked this up. I recall kind-of liking it more than I do now.

I purchased and opened this bottle in January 2015. It is 2/3 full and has always been gassed. This expression is reviewed in my usual manner, allowing it to settle after which I take my nosing and tasting notes.

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Nose:

In the standard glencairn, Sweet, fruity, spicy, dusty. Fresh. A little green apple. The first sniff in the Canadian Glencairn is condensed and powerful, with emphasis on the rye spiciness. Light syrup. 22/25

Taste:

Thin, slightly bitter on first sip. A little sweeter with following sips. Quite unidimentional. Not at all to my liking. No improvement in the Canadian, more diluted flavours, except that the rye spices came out a little more after I poured the contents of the standard Glencairn into it. 20/25

Finish: Short, uninspiring.20/25

Balance: The palate really disappoints the exceptional promise of the nose. 20/25

Score: 82/100

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On a whim, I tossed in an ice cube, like my father used to do with the standard CC. You can see ripples in the liquid as the cube melts, dilutes and cools the liquid. Tastes OK, actually a little nicer than neat.

I didn’t finish the dram. There have been rare occasions when I’ve reached for this (mostly out of curiosity) but tonight is not one of those times. I see from other scores on Connosr that I seem to be right between scores in the 70s and high 80s. I would not have expected this to be a polarizing whisky.

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