Forty Creek Barrel Select

Since almost every review (some of my own included!) of Forty Creek seems to go into their unique "meritage" process, I will spare the reader this time. However, a few unique things about Forty Creek: they only distill their line of products once in a pot still, they use a climate controlled warehouse, and most of their grain they don't mill themselves.

Barrel select is composed of a mix of 6-10 year old single grain malted barley, corn, and rye whiskies. These whiskies are then blended together and set in sherry casks for further maturation.

Nose: Spicy rye, vanilla, and a very distinctive toasted oak smell as well which I don't find in places beyond Forty Creek. A bit of lighter tropical fruit, almost like guavas and perhaps marmelade. Oak also comes through, with heavy vanilla notes and caramel. The spiciness in the rye is very inviting. Additionally, it's quite creamy, even with scents of buttercream. The vanilla, the rye, the toasted oak are all quite prominent and well balanced. Black currants, plums, and orange peel are wonderfully present and seem to lift the nose to be fresh and light - in some ways, the fruitiness is reminiscent of port wine. Cinnamon is present in the nose too, which builds as it sits. 88%

Taste: Slightly viscous, with a dry rye spice build up, which dies down and subsides to vanilla and a reasonably complex grain taste and toasted wood. in the middle, malt seems to come a tiny bit forward with a bit of a grassy note, and creaminess from corn also comes in. Fruity, with a bit of a sherry note, and a few dried berries seem to emerge at the end with some of that marmelade from the nose. the spices tingle slightly at the end, with touches of clove and ginger. The toasted oak plays center stage, with the rye vying heavily for it. The sweetness is at a great level, I think too, for this whisky - just enough, but not too much for the profile. 83%

Finish: A bit dry...light with a bit of rye and the oak, but it's not very complex or engaging. I find that as I drink more the spices come out a bit more, which I certainly don't mind, with come cinnamon and ginger and white pepper. A bit of the creaminess comes through as well, as well as a bit of black currant after some time...I did hope for a bit more than this after the nose and taste. 73%

Intrigue: The value for this whisky is great, and it stands up well as a sipper and is one of my favourite mixers. It's not too bland, sweet, or light as can be the case with some Canadian whiskies - but it's still very approachable. 80%

Weighting the nose 25%, taste 35%, Finish 15%, and Intrigue 25% the overall grade is 81.

*I have also posted a separate format (with similar content) of this review at whiskywon.wordpress.com/2014/08/…

I have five very interesting Canadian whiskies to taste, leading up to Tuesday July 1st (I'll have a sixth the week after, so that will have to be extra). Let's start with a readily available standard offering from Forty Creek. I've reviewed some of their limited editions here (and the underrated Copper Pot) but this is my first examination of their most ubiquitous whisky. This particular bottle was a birthday gift from my brother.

I was surprised to learn that all the whiskies in Barrel Select are distilled in their copper pot still (given the high volume of this product, that distillation method seems quite laborious). The mash bill is a mix of rye, barley and corn, which are each matured separately in new white American oak barrels (at various char levels) for 6 to 10 years, then blended together and matured for another six months in sherry casks.

The colour is a reddish bronze. On the nose, black cherries, dates and walnuts. There are some raspberries and blackberries in there as well - quite fruity. Sharp rye in the background, with pencil shavings. Cloves and cinnamon. Earthy. Eucalyptus? And some sherry notes as well. Water adds more wet slate rye notes. Very complex for a standard Canadian release.

On the palate, the sherry notes are still present; also black currant, maple, honey and vanilla. Dark chocolate with some rich spices. Quite fruity as well, this time there are dates and plums. Water adds some citrus - very interesting. Not as complex as the nose but very enjoyable.

The finish is a little chalky with some Christmas cake and black liquorice to give it body. I hadn't tried this one is some years, and back then I thought it was so-so. But now I get much more complexity and richness than I remember. Less rye here than in most Canadian whiskies, but more fruit, nuts and chocolate. Very enjoyable and criminally easy to drink.

Warm steady fast arrival fruit/herbal middle develops a well balanced long slow powerful finish.

I first discovered forty creek before I discovered whisky connosr and this review was done with the sixth bottle in my cabinet. I strongly recommend this as a great whisky for anyone and anytime. :)

Forty Creek Barrel Select is the basic mass market product of the Forty Creek Distillery. The reviewed bottle has been open about 13 months, and is 80% full. This review is in non-sequential format (SQVH)

Strength: the flavours of all of the component elements, grain, oak, and wine, are intensely powerful from nose to palate to finish. They are almost too strong, and this is at 40% abv. Score 23/25 all whiskies; 24/25 Canadian Category

Quality: for the first 5 months this manifest incredibly strong rye spicy flavours, very strong very sweet vanilla/caramel wood flavours (from new oak, I believe), and, this being Canadian blended whisky, strong wine flavours, as well. I liked the whisky during this time and would have rated it at 87 overall.

At about 5 months after the bottle was opened, sulphur drowned out everything else and made this bottle undrinkable...

...but, in the last couple of months, for reasons which I do not understand, the sulphur, which can still be tasted to a small degree, has receded in intensity and the whisky is once again drinkable, albeit softened, compared to the experience of the first 5 months.

Jim Murray reports in his 2013 Bible that Forty Creek has gotten the Sulphur out of Barrel Select with his more recently sampled batch. I am scoring this on the first 5 months, and on the supposition that Mr. Murray has it right for the more recent batches. Score 21/25 all; 23/25 Canadian

Variety: there is tons of variety in these flavours. The mouth pops with their intensity. Score 23/25 all; 24/25 Canadian

Harmony: the intense flavours together make a slightly strange brew. Not refined, not sophisticated, but highly entertaining and very robust. A bruiser. Score 20/25 all; 21/25 Canadian

Total Scores: 87 all; 92 Canadian

Comment: I like this whisky. I am enthusiastic at the prospect that my next bottle of Forty Creek Barrel Select will likely not have an issue with Sulphur flavours. Personally I prefer the Barrel Select over what I have sampled of the Forty Creek Confederation Oak, which is to me dull and washed-out by comparison

I was throughly disappointed with this whisky. I'd heard others say that the barrel select bottling of Forty Creek was prone to sulfur contamination but I bought a bottle anyways hoping for the best. Damn the luck! All was looking good for the first few drams and then with a quarter of the whisky gone an overwhelming sulfur bomb went off inside the bottle and the other 3/4 became horridly tainted. I still give this dram a 60/100 due to first impressions but docked at least 25 points due to the unacceptable taint. Better without water when it isn't mired in sulfur.

Barrel Select is a blend of corn, rye, and malted barley, aged 6 to 10 years in oak casks of varying char levels, and then finished for some months in Canadian sherry casks.

On the nose it offers some toasty notes and marmalade. Rather restrained, but pleasant enough.

In the mouth you get immediate toasted flavours, especially coffee and toasted nuts, accompanied by honey sweetness. Light-bodied and smooth. Less sherry involvement than I recall. Very nice overall. It finishes with nice toasted oak flavours and the tartness of sherry.

Barrel Select is an excellent entry-level whisky, offering greater complexity and depth of flavour than most of its Canadian counterparts. Great value.

Drunk neat.

Nose: Vanilla and raisins.

Taste: Starts cool and is fairly liquid, not as syrupy as other Canadians I have tasted. Sweet at first (maple syrup-like) but becomes more fruity and slightly spicy as it warms.

Finish: Rye spiciness comes out at first, then gradually fades to leave a sweet aftertaste in the mouth.

Balance: Fairly sweet but well balanced with fruits and spices. It's rather subdued, nothing jumps out. It's a good introduction and it's just complex enough to be interesting.

Will I buy it again? No, not with the Copper Pot Reserve at nearly the same price point and so much more powerful.

A group of friends and I had our first Whiskey night this past weekend. We each bought a bottle (4 total) and did a blind tasting of each bottle. This bottle was one of the competitors, which makes this review based on a blind tasting.

Nose: Right off the bat, the Forty Creek Barrel Select offered a very pleasant vanilla. I also smelled a bit of medicine, but it wasn't bad. This was really nice!

Palate: Light oak taste, with some syrup and caramel. This was so disappointing because of the nose's promise. Still, it wasn't bad and was very drinkable.

Finish: The finish was on the shorter side, but not too short. Pretty smooth with a caramel coming through.

Overall not a bad whiskey for everyday drinking. When I found out what this was and that it costs on $20, I thought immediately that this is going to replace Crown Royal as my Canadian whiskey of choice.

Tawny amber pour. There is a significant peppery/spicy edge to the nose with a little bit of alcohol. It opens up with a touch of light vanilla and some butterscotch in addition to a little bit of rye character. The flavour is a little bit sweet with a kiss of bruleed sugar and a lightly oily texture. The flavour has a little bit of fruit but it's grain/spice dominated. There is almost a touch of vineousness on the back. Lingering vanilla on the finish. A fine whisky.

Last February, I did a little road trip to Van Kleek Hill to go see the Beau's brewery and by some of their great microbrewed beer. I killed two birds with one rock by going to the lcbo. There I picked up a bottle of Forty Creek Barrel Select. I did well.

The nose is very beautiful. Really. It's sweet and fruity and spicy and with vanilla. But nothing overwhelming, just very enticing.

It is quite full bodied and creamy. A dark gold, somewhat auburn colored.

In the mouth, it's very bread pudding like: raisins in sweet syrup with spices and vanilla. Great! And it gives the same cool initial hit.

And the finish is vanilla and spices that becomes dry. Woody.

All around a very drinkable, moorish dram. Sweet but not too much. Quite complex and interesting.

Keeps reminding me of the flor de caña 12 YO, but spicier, more complex and with a better finish. I should try blending them in a rhumsky... I'll post the result in the comments.

After reading some reviews of this, I finally scored a bottle. A well known whisky writer has complained that this expression of Forty Creek's whisky is sulphur tainted and unfortunately I have to agree with his assessment, at least with respect to my bottle. As I drank more of this the sulphur taint became stronger, perhaps because the sulphur settles to the bottom of the bottle. I emailed with Forty Creek and they were surprised that this could be sulphur tainted.

I have had some drinks of this from another person's bottle and initially my bottle tasted fine so my review is based upon my initial impressions of this and not the subsequent tastings where I noticed sulphur.

The nose on this is delicious with notes of carmel and butterscotch that leaves you lusting for more. Any person who does not like whisky will instantly want to try this based upon the nose alone.

The taste does not match the nose but is still quite nice with fruity and vanilla notes.

The finish is quite short and does not linger. While not dramatically complex, this is still a fine whisky and quite inexpensive for what it offers. Even though my bottle became unpleasant in the last half or so given the sulphur taint I noted, given the price (around $US 20), I would definitely recommend this.

Recently, the Forty Creek distillery of Grimsby, Ontario, released their latest expression, Canadian Oak Reserve. Over the launch weekend, I toured the facility and returned home with bottles to complete my stock of the current Forty Creek lineup: Barrel Select, Three Grain, Double Barrel Reserve, and Canadian Oak Reserve. Following in the footsteps of several distinguished members of the Connosr community, I will review each of these expressions over the coming days. Below is a lengthy preamble of Forty Creek’s method; feel free to skip it in order to get to the review that follows.

All Forty Creek whiskies are some blend of maize, rye, and barley, though the ages and proportions are somewhat variable. There are no age statements on any Forty Creek release; the consistency of an expression (particularly Barrel Select) is maintained by tasting. They use two copper pot stills—the larger of the pair modified by a short, stainless steel column that keeps alcohol concentrations high (at about 65%)—and they use only the first distillate. Their rye barrels are lightly charred, barley barrels are medium-charred, and maize barrels are heavily charred (also known as an “alligator” char).

Forty Creek’s owner and master distiller is John Hall, a winemaker by trade. In the making of Forty Creek whisky, Hall has taken advantage of his vintner’s background in several ways. He founded Kittling Ridge, a winery, to provide funds while his Forty Creek spirits began to mature, and he makes use of the winery’s Kingsgate Reserve sherry casks to finish Barrel Select, Forty Creek’s basic expression.

Most importantly, however, Hall’s training led to a simple, but revolutionary, method of whiskymaking. In the production of whisky (from multiple grains), the different grain spirits tend to be combined prior to maturation—a mashbill, for instance, of some proportion of maize, rye, and barley fermented, distilled, and aged together. The grain profiles are thus confounded with one another, such that the moment at which one spirit (such as the maize) achieves its desired profile may not correspond to that of the others (such as the rye and barley). Hall gets around this problem by employing a winemaker’s method, in the Bordeaux and meritage traditions, for each of his Forty Creek releases: maturing each spirit in barrels separately before blending. Once a barrel has achieved its desired profile, the spirit is transferred to stainless steel tanks for holding until the other spirits are ready for blending. Once blended, the final spirit is re-barreled from a period of several months to several years, to finish the whisky and round the final product out.

FORTY CREEK BARREL SELECT

Barrel Select is Forty Creek’s entry-level whisky. It is inexpensive (~$25 Canadian for 750 ml), widely available in most Canadian (and several US) markets, and is more of a mixing whisky than a sipper. As noted above, it is finished in sherry casks.

The nose is sweet vanilla and butterscotch pudding; butter slathered over hot, fresh, whole wheat rolls; grape juice, white chocolate, and orange marmalade.

The palate begins with slightly sour grapes, turning to sweet vanilla, bitter orange, vanilla again, and milk chocolate. The finish is slightly hot and edgy: fine for sipping, even better for mixing.

The body has a light mouthfeel, coating the glass with a healthy splash of wee whisky tears.

Barrel Select is a superb entry-level whisky, and for the price, an unbelievable bargain. It should have the Canadian whisky giants (Crown Royal, Canadian Club) running scared.

great Canadian whisky, blended only after each grain mash aged seperately. Unique method.

People reject Canadian because it is relatively delicate. This is true. IF you blew all your tastebuds on smakes and french fries, it will be too light for you.

On the other hand, if you really like whisky you need to try this one. It may change your mind from "Scotch or nothing."