Forty Creek Heart of Gold

I've not seen or heard of any of this in NZ. Reading your review it sounds a bit meh, but then you give it 90 - it must have some hidden beauty there?

@Hewie It has a heart of gold. I’m not a supertaster so I rarely get 40 smells and flavours. But there is a complexity with the flavours and the mouthfeel that is quite exceptional.

@Hewie most of the top 5% Canadian whiskies will be available to you only if you travel in Canada, and only then if you know where, when, and how to get some of them. In 2011 I read about all of these Canadian whiskies that Jim Murray was scoring very highly, none of which I could buy in Maryland 500 miles from the Canadian border. So I traveled up there with my sister on a Canadian whisky exploration and buying trip and bought a bunch of them. She, my late wife, and I have been back to Canada about 10-12 more times since then, meeting and tasting with our 15+ Canadian whisky friends in Ontario and Quebec. When we started in April 2011 Canadian whisky was very early into a renaissance which has become much more manifest only in the last couple of years. In 2011 that renaissance was not obvious. It is now, for those who have the opportunity to buy and taste the Canadian special release products.

If you are used to drinking only malt whiskies or blended Scotch whiskies there will be an adjustment in getting used to the flavours from whiskies made primarily from corn, rye, and wheat. You may or may not acquire the taste for them, just as you may or may not acquire a taste for US ryes or bourbons. (yes, I put rye first because I like it better.)

Forty Creek had several nice special releases: John's Private Cask # 1, Port Wood Reserve, Heart of Gold, and Evolution. These were one-off special releases, back in the days when the charismatic founder, John Hall, still ran the show and before the current big multinational corporate ownership. @Nozinan I've only had one taste of Heart of Gold thus far, and I was not impressed by that one taste. I hope it was an outlier, and I hope that I will greatly enjoy the unopened bottle of Heart of Gold which I bought when it was released several years ago.

Also interesting is that because of the current multinational corporate world Canadian products are sometimes bottled in the US, often at higher ABV than they are released in Canada. Some of those products are higher end products unavailable in Canada. It took the last two years of Lot 40 Cask Strength to get Canadian whisky released in Canada above 50% ABV.

@Nozinan, thank you for a very interesting review. I sometimes enjoy the preamble or backstory as much as the review, this is one of those times.

We have collaborated on all things whisky, with many of the whisky things travelling from you to me. It was my pleasure to send some of this whisky your way.

Congratulations on your latest political adventure. I some day hope to address you as the Honourable @Nozinan.

First Honourable @Nozinan, then Prime Minister @Nozinan.

@Victor, he's the First Minister of Malt.

Thank you both. My wife will be shocked if I win.

This would not be a good election for me to win. Last election was our 42nd parliament. I had a bottle of A’Bunadh batch 42 prepared. I have a batches 44 and 47 for future elections but they never publicly released a batch 43.

Maybe a Highland Park has a release that translates to “hell freezing over”.

And here we are in 2021 where I have officially announced my intention to run under the same leader in the next election. So I am celebrating with an exquisite 10 cc pour of this elixir.

8 years after purchase I still have not yet opened my bottle of Forty Creek Heart of Gold. But I am very happy to have it!

@Victor When to unseal a bottle of something you cannot replace.... The eternal question...

@Nozinan Preferably when one is still able to enjoy it.