We teamed up with Kilchoman and Noble Estates, a distillery we hadn’t yet featured in any events before, and had a great line-up of whiskies. These were presented by James Wills, son of the founder of of Kilchoman, and he shared amazing and hilarious stories and anecdotes of his experience working with his family to found, run and grow the distillery into the well respected ..read more

A couple years ago now we acquired some old malts from the 80s and 90s. We’ve previously tasted some of these at an Ardbeg/Glenmorangie tasting, a vintage blends event and our recent Bruichladdich tasting. We still had 10 vintage malts left and so we decided to throw a huge tasting with half ounce pours of each so our members would have a chance to try long gone bottlings and brands! A few broken corks didn’t stop us from enjoying fantastic old sherried bottlings, light and fruity malts, and some very funky ones too. There’s even a strathglen, which we couldn’t find a single description or rev ..read more

In Feb 2024 we held a tasting with a brand we had long hoped to work with – Bruichladdich. Reed Pettit brought a few bottles and we acquired a Laddie 10 from the 90s, along with two experimental bottlings courtesy of a member of the club. The tasting was incredible, the stories and insights Reed shared were equally phenomenal and everyone had an amazing time. Here are some pics of the bottles we tasted and the event ..read more

Diony Distillery from Red Deer Alberta reached out recently asking if we’d be interested in trying their whiskies and of course, we said … of course! The whiskies recently arrived and we gave them a shot, so here’s a little about the distillery, their core expressions, and our thoughts on them. Diony refers to Dionysus, the creator of wine from Greek mythology, which we aren’t going to rehash here because we’re more interested in whisky than marketing, but we encourage you to check out their website to learn more! Stéphane Pilon is the master distiller at Diony and is PASSIONATE about support ..read more

We held our AGM as usual in December 2023 and it was a great one, highlighted by amazing food (including a brisket smoked by member Sheps and Canada goose jerky hunted, prepared and cured by founding member and re-elected exec member Bryan. In addition to great food, we had some great whisky, including the leftovers from the 2023 TWS Canadian Single Malt awards, and a ton of heels brought by members. We also enjoyed this Indri single malt, sent to us by the distillery, and when we posted this picture on instagram, it went viral! At this time it has nearly 2600 likes and 48,000 impressions ..read more

We don’t know if it’s general inflation or just increased demand (spoiler: it’s inflation), but it seems that every time you turn around, the price of whisky has increased. It’s remarkable how many bottles, including ones well loved and formerly reasonably priced, have become priced out of the “every day” category. Since the holidays are fast approaching, at a recent TWS event, we asked the membership “what are your picks for best whiskies under $100”. (Please note that these are LCBO prices. If you live in another Province, State or Country, your prices are probably better and you may have so ..read more

So after a full day of tasting, finding winners of 4 categories and 2 sub-categories, We had to determine our overall winners. 7 finalists were compared blind head-to-head and re-ranked to find our winners for the year. Congratulations to Macaloney’s, Two Brewers and Okanagan for having multiple entries each in the finals! Here are the winners: HONOURABLE MENTIONS RUNNER-UP 2023 CANADIAN MALT OF THE YEAR Huge congratulations to the winners! Here are some family shots of the distilleries that made it to the finals and their medals: Can’t wait till next year ..read more

These malts participated in other categories but were distinct in that they came from a single barrel before release. You can see the full details of this single STR Port barrel Macaloney’s release in the finished whisky category. the LMD release was a single barrel Islay cask finished whisky, which participated in the peated category. The Two Brewers Release 37 single cask was the big winner here, taking this sub-category along with the cask strength category ..read more

Either by happenstance or intentional permanent release, there are some great malts out there that are under 3 years of age, and technically not whisky. Our entries in this sub-category this year were produced about as far apart as possible from the shore of Newfoundland to the coast of Vancouver island! This young malt also participated in the Classic malt category and as of writing is likely ready to be released as a full fledged whisky now! The Peated Mac Na Braiche was obviously also in the peated category and won top under-aged malt this year ..read more

We had two cask strength malts submitted, from the Yukon and BC. Release 37 from Two Brewers is a single cask release made from standard barley plus Honey malt and Vienna malt. It was aged 8 years in a second use white oak barrel. This Okanagan Laird of Fintry Black label is cask strength, aged 5 years in white oak and finished for 6 months in Quails Gate Foch casks. WINNERS – CASK STRENGTH In this category we actually had a TIE in the original round, so it was decided to send both to the finals and see how they stacked up in a larger line-up. After the final round the results were: Congra ..read more