NEAT FREAKS

Far from it! Women are drinking whisky, breaking into the distilling industry and smashing old-school notions that this golden hard hitter is reserved for boys clubs. Ishani Nath gives the trending tipple a try.

‘Do you want some of this?” Danielle Graham’s cousin asked her while they were up at the family cottage in Ontario. Then 19, she had never tasted alcohol before. Intrigued, she said yes. He poured them each a glass and asked if she wanted anything with it.

“I dunno, Coke?”

Her cousin shook his head. “Not with this.” He handed her a glass of Glenfiddich whisky.

“I’ve heard that a lot of people are not immediately enthralled by the strong taste of whisky, but I didn’t have a problem with it, I really enjoyed it,” says Graham, co-founder of tasting and social club Women Who Whiskey’s Waterloo, Ont., chapter. The parent club was founded in 2011 and has more than 20 chapters around the world.

Whiskies are the most popular hard liquors sold in Canada. While the majority of Canadian consumers are definitely men, according to sales data, at least one in three purchasers are women. And that market is growing. So, why is a cosmo considered ‘girlie’ while whisky has garnered a reputation as a ‘man’s drink’?

That’s the question that landed me on the rooftop patio of Toronto’s Park Hyatt hotel with tasters of Jameson Irish Whiskey, Knob Creek Bourbon and Crown Royal Canadian Whisky in front of me, with Graham and her Women Who Whiskey Waterloo co-founder Eva Skuza to guide me. They taught me to smell the whisky prior to sipping it, but not too much because, unlike wine, it’s often 40 per cent or higher in alcohol, so taking in a big whiff will only hurt your nostrils. They also showed me how adding a drop of water can change the taste as the whisky opens up and, to my surprise, I enjoyed it all — and started to wonder why I hadn’t given whisky a fair shot earlier.

Back in the day, and by that I mean pre-1900s, women were a major part of the alcohol production industry. According to The Atlantic, in the 1700s, American men would specifically seek wives who could homebrew beer or distil spirits. However, as the whisky industry grew, so did its perceived connection to prostitution, since it was sold in large volumes in brothels by sex workers.

Shortly thereafter, the Temperance Movement, propelled by predominately Protestant women in Canada and the U.S., pushed against the consumption of any and all alcohol.

“The Temperance Movement really demonized whisky, but more than that, it really, really demonized women who drank whisky,” says Davin de Kergommeaux, author of Canadian Whiskey: The New Portable Expert. He sees gendered marketing of whisky and the fact that literal boys clubs are built around the beverage as residual effects of this movement.

“But with the current generation, people don’t differentiate between men and women drinking whisky and this is kind of trickling up” to distillers, which are more and more marketing to women.

De Kergommeaux says he’s seeing a lot more women in the industry, too, representing brands as well as on the distilling side — women like Caitlin Quinn, a distiller at Eau Claire Distillery in Turner Valley, Alta.

Quinn did her master’s in brewing and distilling at Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University. She says she was one of five female students in a class of 60. But like Graham from the Women Who Whiskey club, Quinn saw this disparity as a draw.

“With there not being a lot of females in the course, it’s one of those things that make you want to get into it, to show people that women can do it,” says the 26-year-old.

At whisky tastings and industry events, Quinn sees the effects of the long-standing gender gap firsthand. She hears comments like, “This is too strong of a whisky for you ... it’s too developed for females.”

Often, people will assume she is attending an event with her husband or boyfriend, rather than as a seller.

That said, she does see things in the industry changing, albeit slowly.

But don’t think whisky is the only alcoholic beverage with an arbitrary gender.

“It’s the same thing for men,” says Graham. “If they want to order a cocktail, they’ll get, ‘Oh, is it for your girlfriend?’… Men have a lot of gendered stereotypes, too.”

With that in mind, and despite its name, Women Who Whiskey is not an all-girls club.

“The main piece for us was, ‘Let’s provide a better example,’ so we actually are inclusive,” says Skuza. “We call it Women Who Whiskey, it’s focused on women, but nowhere do we say ‘no men allowed.’ ”