Canadian wake-up call
Written: Nov 13 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good enough to drink straight
Cons: Somewhat hard to find, not overly complex
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| beerfly's Full Review: Canadian Club Reserve |
Dead or Canadian?
That's an old National Lampoon gag. Pull out the name of a dull public figure, preferably an athlete or entertainer, and ask your friends the question, "Dead? Or Canadian?" Endless hours of arrogant, chauvinistic fun.
Well, for years, Canadian whisky has been walking that fine line. Canadian made it big during Prohibition, when Hiram Walker built the huge Canadian Club distillery at Walkerville, right across the Detroit River from Detroit. "Prohibit this!" the big CANADIAN CLUB sign seemed to say, or maybe a more Carrollian sentiment, like "Drink me." Tanker-loads of the stuff came across the river and the Lakes; how could Customs and the Treasury agents stop it? There was about one agent for every 13 miles of U.S./Canadian border.
So we drank Canadian whisky and developed a taste for it that we're only losing now. Canadian was a giant in the U.S. spirit market, unassailable. My in-laws used to drink Canadian and BC (remember BC? Breakfast Cocktail canned fruit juice?), I had regulars when I tended bar that always drank Canadian and grapefruit juice, and we drank a lot of 7 and 7s in college.
But with all the other "brown spirits" like Scotch and bourbon (and rye, which Canadian actually supplanted to the point where most people mean Canadian when they call for "rye"... and it's almost always what they get), Canadian is finally falling. Canadian whisky's market is getting old fast, and nobody new is drinking it.
Contrary to what NatLamp may have thought, Canadians ain't stupid. They can read a sales graph as well as anyone, and they can also see the success of single malts and wood-finished malts, small batch bourbons... So we're seeing a raft of specialty Canadians, some of them awful, like Tangle Ridge, some of them awesome, like Bush Pilot Private Reserve, and some of them pretty good, like Canadian Club Reserve 10 Year Old.
CC's kind of an odd bird to begin with. According to writer Jim Murray, who probably knows more about Canadian whisky than anyone who doesn't actually make it, Canadian Club is a blend of two different whiskies. One is a high-corn, high final alcohol distillation, the other is a rye/rye malt/oats distillate at a lower alcohol. Each is fermented with a different yeast. Now add to that a kind of unintended solera system in which a small amount of aged whisky is often left in barrels destined to be immediately re-used for aging new whisky. Strange stuff.
They've tried a lot of different things to get that specialty interest, but this one's pretty straightforward; just four more years in the barrel. Of course, these are not new charred oak barrels, so even after ten years the whisky is pretty light in color, yellow with a slight fade of green. The smell is somewhat sweet, and yes, you can smell the rye (praise God!), a little minty-peppery and spicy.
Taste it. Wow, there is rye in there! Yet it clings to the tongue in a way more like the slick coat of Scotch more than the cozy warmth of bourbon or the fireworks of rye. That's snappy stuff, and not as sappily sweet as too many Canadians. There's a good shot of spicy mint, like Altoids: real sharp and strong but not sappy sweet like most schnapps. You can catch some of the oak high in the mouth; even re-used wood has some effect. Can you detect the aged whisky recirculating? Who would know?
High praise for a Canadian whisky: I'd drink this straight. Most Canadians I happily drink with ginger ale but sheer off from the idea of sipping them. The sweetness is too much. But this stuff is OK, you bet. I'll have to track down some of the other CC specialties.
Guess the Canadians are alive after all.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
beerfly
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Member: Lew Bryson
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Reviews written: 88
Trusted by: 82 members
About Me:
One bourbon, one Scotch, one beer, eh? I'll take Kentucky Spirit, Scapa, and HopDevil.
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