HISTORY IN A BOTTLE
Leading expert dubs limited edition 40-year-old Canadian Club ‘staggeringly good’
Tish Harcus, brand ambassador for Canadian Club, displays a 40-year-old Canadian Club Whisky on preview at the Canadian Club Pike Creek aging warehouse.
Talk about barrels of fun.
Canadian Club caused considerable excitement on Tuesday, and perhaps some intoxication, when it pulled back the doors on its massive Lakeshore aging warehouse to unveil the company’s highly anticipated 40-year-old whisky.
It’s the oldest whisky ever released in Canada — made, aged and bottled right here in Windsor. Only 7,000 bottles will be available, and only in Canada.
“This is a genuine occasion in Canadian whisky,” said whisky writer and expert Davin de Kergommeaux, who flew in from Ottawa for a taste. “This is really exciting, and to have it turn out so beautifully? They brought all these journalists in and they’re going to taste something that they’re going to remember.
“This is a historic moment for Canadian whisky. No one else has done this, ever.”
Canadian Club flew in half a dozen journalists and whisky experts from around the country Tuesday for an advance tasting. The limited edition spirit will be released in mid-October at $250 a bottle.
The connoisseurs were treated to samples straight from the barrel inside the Canadian Club Pike Creek aging warehouse. After that, they headed over to Willistead Manor to join Mayor Drew Dilkens for a three-course lunch, cocktails and another sample of the 40-year-old whisky, this time from the bottle.
The caramel and sweetness is still there, but 40 years in the wood has made it a little spicier than Canadian Club’s other fruitier whiskies.
It’s also super smooth with a nice long finish.
“This is staggeringly good whisky,” said de Kergommeaux, who wrote the book Canadian Whisky: The Portable Expert. “It’s really fantastic.”
De Kergommeaux, who had already received advance samples because he writes for Whisky Advocate magazine, said the publication rated it 96 points out of 100.
“There has never been a Canadian whisky, I don’t think there has been any whisky, that has scored better than Canadian Club 40-year-old,” he said. “This is phenomenally good whisky.”
He also confirmed the claim that this is the longest aged whisky ever released in Canada. The second oldest, released in the 1930s, was from Seagrams. It was aged a measly 37 years.
Canadian Club brand ambassador Tish Harcus said about 1,000 barrels of whisky were “laid down to rest” in October 1977.
The whisky was aged in onceused white American oak barrels that came from sister company Jim Beam. After receiving the barrels, Canadian Club gave them an “aggressive char.”
“We burn off all that bourbon and we expose all the fresh wood sugars and vanillas and caramels and tannins,” said Harcus. “So it’s like a brand new barrel to us.”
When they put the liquid into the barrel, it was “water-white.”
“Over the course of 40 years, every second of every hour of every day of every month of every decade, that whisky will go into the wood and come back out,” said Harcus.
“When it comes back out, it pulls with it all those special vanillas, caramels, toffees.”
She said no caramel colouring was added to the whisky after it was pulled from the barrels. It has also not been blended, unlike most other Canadian whiskies.
“What you see is exactly what came out of the barrel,” said Harcus.
“It’s just perfect the way we pulled it.”
The only thing they did to it was reduce the alcohol by volume. It came out of the barrel at 60 per cent. They decreased the bottle strength to 45 per cent by adding filtered water. Apart from that, there was just a lot of waiting.
Harcus said the master blender of the time put the whisky in the barrels and didn’t leave any idea of what his plans were for it. So those who came later kept an eye on the barrels, topping them up when necessary and waiting for the right moment.
“This year, we decided to celebrate it with Canada,” said Harcus. “We didn’t know if he laid it down to coincide with Canada’s 150th. But we’re saying it was a perfect time to pull the whisky after 40 years and it just happened to be Canada’s 150th anniversary, so a perfect combination.”