So, what are you drinking now?

Glen Elgin 12 year. Liquid candy. Waxy mouthfeel. Love it!

@OdysseusUnbound

I don't know. You could try calling first... Or, come to Toronto and taste some good stuff that will make you forget that bottle...

@Nozinan I'm going to bring it to my mother in-law's house. That's where my Teacher's was. It gives me something to drink when I'm over there, and with any luck, others will help me be rid of it.

I'm still working on getting to Toronto.

Auchentoshan valinch 2012. I ordered a bottle of Douglas laings "Epicurean", blended malt to gift to a relative and my guess is that it's major component is Auchentoshan so I thought I'd revisit this fabulous outing to jog my memory.

Tonight, a Manhattan made with equal parts Bulleit 95 Rye and Knobb Creek 100 Proof Small Batch Bourbon.

The other night at my whisky club, we opened a bottle from New Zealand that I'd never tasted or even heard of before: Lawry's Workshops Distillery Single Malt (NAS). It was more on the interesting side than the delicious side. One club buddy said it tasted like a mouthful of baking cocoa. I simply thought it was a little off-putting. A perfect little weirdo to try as a club, though.

And our host shared some of his Santis Malt Swiss Highlander Single Malt, "matured in old oak beer casks." This was light and bland and inoffensive, like a cheapo Highland single malt or maybe a better scotch blend.

At one point in the evening, I half-jokingly declared "I hereby proclaim that never during my reign as club president shall a Canadian whisky appear upon our table!" And then the very next day at a family event, there was a bottle of Crown Royal "Black" (or whatever) on the table. I tried it. It was bad. My declaration stands. :)

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(Again, I'm just half-joking about the Canadian whisky. There's probably some stuff out there I'd like. But I'm also probably unlikely to discover it any time soon.)

@MadSingleMalt, that's a long slope to climb when you begin with CR Black.

@paddockjudge more for the rest of us. It will be a sad day when demand increases for premium canadian product south of the 42nd.

@paddockjudge , @Nozinan : So what's one that...

•Won't break the bank

•Isn't diluted to within an inch of its life

•Isn't tainted with additives

•Has plenty of flavor & character

?

@MadSingleMalt, the tainted with additives schtick is over-hyped....Crown Royal Hand Selected Barrel 103 proof, made from a bourbon style mashbill, and prepared in a 110 year-old Coffey still....in the middle of nowhere.

@MadSingleMalt

Not to mention @newreverie's Forty Creek Heart of Gold, Highwood 90/20, Wiser's Dissertation, Lot 40....

And tonight I close out the Canada Day weekend in a cheerful mood, as Grilli's talent has found a home, and I'll celebrate with a modest dram of Wiser's Dissertation.

@MadSingleMalt "The other night at my whisky club, we opened a bottle from New Zealand that I'd never tasted or even heard of before: Lawry's Workshops Distillery Single Malt (NAS)." I'm a Kiwi and I'd not heard of that one either. You did well to get hold of that as when I went to their website I see it was only a small run of bottles. There have been a few startup distilleries in NZ. I think I'll give it a while before throwing my (limited) cash at them :) Good on you for drinking your way around the world though!

On the eve of Independence Day, Old Grandad 114.

@bwmccoy that is an excellent choice. If I had an unlimited supply as you do in the US I would be quicker to open my next bottle... Something I will surely need to do once I pare down some of my open bourbons.

@Nozinan - Thanks. I'm not sure about the unlimited supply. I heard it was being discontinued. Thankfully, my wife picked up a couple of bottles for me, just in case.

Now, having a Tobermory 10 year (July 2005) heavily peated From Single Cask Nation, Cask #10.

@bwmccoy, Beam Suntory changed their mind, at least for the current year, about discontinuing Old Grand-Dad 114. I am still happy about having a few bottles of it as back-up. OGD114 was discontinued in my area 3 years ago.

@Victor - thanks Victor for the update. Glad to hear that. Happy 4th to you and @dramlette! Hope you both are doing well. All is well here. Take care and thanks again!

@bwmccoy, thank you very much for the greeting. We are very well here. A very Happy July 4th to you and to Tamara!

Pikesville Straight Rye on the 4th of July

Tonight, once again, a Manhattan made with equal parts Bulleit 95 Rye and Knobb Creek 100 Proof Small Batch Bourbon. Killed off both of those bottles. Guess the next Manhattan will have to be made with Old Grand Dad 114.

@paddockjudge , on additives: They can add like 9% of whatever into the whiskey and still call it whiskey, right? Do the labels say which ones do this and which ones don't?

@paddockjudge and @Nozinan : Are the Canadians you named really that distinctive or have much character? You mention a "bourbon-style mashbill"—so is that stuff all that different from bourbon? Put another way, is there a compelling reason for a guy—who only kinda likes bourbon and American-style whisky to begin with—to buy a Canadian instead of just getting another $20 bottle of OGD 114?

@Hewie , thanks. A buddy from the whisky club brought that NZ whisky back up here to the States from a recent trip.

It was fun to try something from a far-flung (to me) part of the world, and its taste was something different for sure. But it was not good. If I were to rate it, we'd be in the 65-70 neighborhood. I'm kinda glad it's only a 500 ml bottle.

@MadSingleMalt

Canadian whiskies, as a class, are very different in profile to American whiskies. The ones I mentioned are excellent examples of Canadian whisky. I like some bourbons (like OGD114), and I like some Canadians, but I would never confuse the 2 by smell or taste.

@Nozinan , at your prompting, I just read the Wiser's Dissertation review from @talexander, which I'd previously skipped past.

connosr.com/wisers-dissertation-whisky-rev…

Virgin oak, rye spice, caramel, vanilla, etc. It doesn't sound that different to me. If you had a blind glass of this next to a blind glass of some typical good American whisky, what would make you scream "that one's the Canadian!"?

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Also, I gotta say that the criticisms of Canadian whiskey outlined in that review's chat section by @65glenfarclas seem pretty legit to me.

@MadSingleMalt

If you look at 100 reviews of good bourbon you will find many similar descriptors of vanilla, caramel, wood, etc..., and yet are there not differences between bourbons?

Dissertation doesn't taste like any bourbon I've tried, and I've tried probably over 2 dozen by now. It tastes "Canadian".

The criticism of Canadian whisky, especially additives, is fair, but it is not really the point of THIS discussion, which is around the difference in smell and taste from US whisky.

Dissertation is not readily available as a limited release, but I would recommend you try a GOOD more standard example of a Canadian whisky (matured and bottled in Canada as opposed to something like WhistlePig), like Wiser's Legacy (Not my favourite but well-regarded), one of the earlier FC special releases like Heart of Gold (available at least in Texas) or the now standard Confederation Oak. If you can find Highwood 90/20 that is also a good example.

None of those tastes like bourbon or American Straight Rye.

@Nozinan , to answer your first (half-rhetorical?) question: Although it'd be silly to deny there are differences among bourbons, they're mostly interchangeable to me, to be honest. I imagine that's not a common opinion around here. But to me, the experience is always the same: "Tastes fine, would be good mixed with ginger ale." It's all just too sweet and oaky for my taste.

(And yes, I recognize that there's something of a death spiral inherent to that way of thinking: The Platonic ideal of bourbon—and rye for that matter—doesn't do much for me, so I rarely buy it, and I never compare multiple bottles to tease out the differences, so I never gain much appreciation for what makes any given bourbon special relative to others. I'll taste anything shared by a friend, but I'm not gonna seek it out on my own dollar. So I might never appreciate the differences among bourbons, and I'm OK with that. Just like I'm OK with never appreciating the differences among high-end red wines or whatever.)

But all that aside, what about these whiskies you're naming makes them taste "Canadian"?

@MadSingleMalt They don't taste Canadian, but like Scotches ryes, bourbons and gins have certain flavours in common, Canadian whiskies share a common profile.

It's like asking, what makes chocolate taste like chocolate?

Bourbon has a distinct smell and taste, at least most do to some extent. I can't describe the smell but I know it when I taste it. Hmm, isn't that paraphrasing one of your Supreme Court judges?

You need to taste the stuff to see what I mean.

I hereby invite anyone on Connosr to persuade me why I should lay out some cash to try a quality Canadian whisky. So far, I'm not convinced.

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Back on the subject of this thread, it just started raining here. Feels like scotch weather! I hear the Lagavulin 8 calling my name when I get home tonight.

@MadSingleMalt wrote:

They can add like 9% of whatever into the whiskey and still call it whiskey, right? Do the labels say which ones do this and which ones don't?

I'm not Paddockjudge, but I'll answer this one anyway until he chimes in. The second question first: no, labels generally do not include any information on whether or not additives were used.

As to the second question: again, no, they can't add anything they want. Whatever they do add has to be aged two years in wood, at minimum. Here's a more thorough explanation by Davin DeKergommeaux, the author of the book Canadian Whisky:

The addition of non-whisky flavouring − the so-called 9.09% rule − is sometimes talked about on chat boards, although it is poorly understood. This is a practice that is not nearly as prevalent as some people suggest. It is more of a footnote to a discussion of the elements of Canadian whisky production. In a nutshell, to aid U.S. producers, American tax law provides financial incentives for foreign spirits that include some American-made spirits. For high-volume bottom-shelf whiskies this is a substantial tax break. For lower-volume whiskies it is often not worth the effort. Thus, some Canadian whiskies made for the U.S. market include American spirits even though the version of the same whisky made for the Canadian market (and the rest of the world) often will not. As well, in some cases, regardless of the intended market, small amounts of foreign spirit will be added to enhance certain flavours. This is further complicated by the use of the words “wine” and “sherry” to describe some of these additives, even though the actual liquid used bears little or no resemblance to what the general public perceives wine or sherry to be. Moreover, all spirits added to Canadian whisky under this rule must have spent at least 2 years maturing in wood.