Great Plains Craft Spirits are a small spirits company located in Calgary, Alberta. They are a small company which sources special whiskies for blending and finishing. The intent is to offer to the marketplace limited edition bottlings which feature custom blending and cask finishes. I reviewed their first offering, a stunning 18 year old Brandy Cask whiskey in 2020, and was contacted this year to see if I wanted to taste and review their latest offering,  Great Plains Cognac Casks 22 Year Old Canadian Whisky. This new release is a 100 % corn spirit produced from stocks which were part of ..read more

Basil Hayden’s was originally promoted as part of Jim Beam’s Small Batch Bourbon Collection. This collection is composed of Knob Creek, Booker’s, Baker’s  and Basil Hayden’s bourbon whiskies. Although Jim Beam Distillers no longer promotes the Small Batch Collection, I would like to suggest that this selection of premium bourbon played no small part in the explosion of popularity of the spirit for whiskey enthusiasts. (It certainly has a positive impact on me.) Basil Hayden’s is unique in that it is produced from a distilling mash which has an especially high rye content, twice as much ry ..read more

Bearface Whisky Wilderness Series Matsutake Release 01 is owned by Mark Anthony Wine and Spirits. The company does not have its own distillery for making whisky so to make their Bearface brand they begin with Canadian single grain whisky from an undisclosed outside source.  In creating their Matsuktake limited edition whisky, they first mature the whisky in ex-wine casks and sherry pipes in shipping containers that have been placed in the Canadian wilderness in a process they call ‘Elemental Ageing’. The whisky is then finished in a Cask which contains Matsutake Mushrooms. To write t ..read more

I’ve been away for a while as I spent August with the family as we travelled to Langley BC to watch my son compete at the Canadian National Track Meet where he took home a bronze medal in the 100M wheelchair finals. Now that September is here, I have lots to catch up on. I thought I would begin with a look at one of my favourite bourbon whiskeys. Knob Creek Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey was originally promoted as part of Jim Beam’s Small Batch Bourbon Collection. This collection is composed of Knob Creek, Booker’s, Baker’s  and Basil Hayden’s. Although Jim Beam Distillers no longer pr ..read more

Jacques and Daniel first met in 2016 at a distilling workshop in the Okanagan where they recognized a shared love for making spirits. This shared passion laid the foundation for Bridgeland Distillery located in Calgary, Alberta within the community of Bridgeland-Riverside. The distillery’s focus is on Brandy, Canadian Whisky, and Eau de Vie, spirits which highlight their origins and heritage.   Taber Corn Berbon is a whisky inspired by the best corn grown in the entire world, Alberta’s own Taber Corn. I am not kidding here, every summer almost every person in Alberta who loves the farmer ..read more

The Last Straw Distillery is Ontario’s smallest production micro-distillery located at 40 Pippin Rd. in Vaughan, Ontario (a wee bit north of Toronto) just off Highway 400 and around the corner from Vaughan Mills Shopping Centre. Last Straw Distillery’s Rice and Rye Whisky is the result of a question posed by Mark Hayhoe, then of K2 Milling. He wondered out loud when speaking to Don DiMonte of Last Straw whether wild rice make good whisky? So the folks at Last Straw Distillery ran a batch of Argentinian Wild Rice through the distillation process. Problem was, the batch didn’t produce enough dis ..read more

It is almost almost ten years since Campari assumed the reigns of the Forty Creek Whisky brand, and I notice that some changes have taken place. Now Bill Ashburn is Forty Creek’s Master Blender (although is is very likely that Bill has had his hand in most of the Forty Creek whiskies since the beginning). Forty Creek has shifted the branding of its whisky adding the term Niagara Whisky to their labels attaching themselves firmly to the Niagara Peninsula and Canada’s largest wine region. New bottles have been introduced; and, for many of their whisky brands, lower prices as well. The flagship b ..read more

Forty Creek recently rebranded itself as Forty Creek Niagara Whisky which seems to be an attempt to infuse the notion of Canadian Whisky style unique to the  Niagara wine growing region of Canada. Their Art of The Blend whisky was as far as I know the first of their bottlings to sport the new moniker. And, I suspect to drive the point home,this is a whisky with a firm connection to wine making. According to the Forty Creek Whisky website: Our Master Blender Bill Ashburn celebrates 35 years of imagination and craft with this extraordinary limited creation. Art of the Blend tells his story ..read more

The Stillhead Distillery, founded by the Colebank Family, began operations in October of 2017 in Duncan British Columbia with a vision to distill the essence of Vancouver Island into their brands. They do this by adding distinct Vancouver Island ingredients to their products showcasing their home in every bottle. Stillhead BC/QC Whisky Maple Syrup Cask Finish (that’s quite a mouthful) is the latest addition to the Stillhead whisky Portfolio. It is a 100% British Columbia rye grain whisky first aged in ex-bourbon casks for 3 to 4 years, and then it was finished in whisky barrels which had recen ..read more

Signal Hill is the name of a relatively new Canadian Whisky partially owned by Canadian actor Dan Aykroyd, the Blues Brother who also owns a stake in Crystal Head Vodka. The Canadian Whisky blend is produced from two grains, corn and barley. The corn is double distilled on a column still producing a light, smooth spirit. The barley is pot distilled to create a more flavourful, heavier whisky. After blending, the whisky uses a non-chill filtration process preserving the heavier flavour molecules and oils from the distillation with the aim of a fuller mouthfeel and smoother finish. Here is a lin ..read more