Released in 2016, Liquormen's Ol' Dirty Canadian Whisky is a sourced whisky from an unnamed distillery in Alberta then bottled by Rock Spirits (a blending and bottling subsidiary of the Newfoundland Labrador Liquor Commission) for Dartmouth Spirits Inc. - the IRL drinks business side of the Trailer Park Boys media group. 

According to the label notes, the Trailer Park Boys launched this whisky to honour the legacy of liquor thieving bandits from the old West. Bottled at 40% ABV and aged for just three years in charred, white oak casks; it's a young whisky. 

While I was bemused by the idea of grabbing a bottle to play the home game, yet given the Boys' other attempts at making and selling booze I didn't have high hopes for the result. 

J.P. Wiser's Dissertation is the distillery's latest release in their Rare Cask Series; a limited run of one-off bottlings put together by Master Blender Dr. Don Livermore. This one however, is particularly special to Dr. Livermore as the whisky in the blend came from 114 barrels he used during his doctoral research to develop a method of predicting the effect of wood on the maturation process.

"How do you know a barrel is any good?" asks Dr. Don somewhat rhetorically. "Well, typically, you look at the barrel and smell it...and then make a decision, but you won't really know until the spirit has had time to mature, and by only then would you know with any certainty if it worked out or if it was a loss." 

The so-called "wood character" of a barrel is one of the most important factors when it comes to producing whisky. Not only does the wood draw out unwanted flavour compounds in un-aged spirit like dimethyl sulfide - which displays a potent cabbage-like aroma even at low concentrations -  but it's also responsible for imbuing the liquid with all kinds of delicious and desirable flavours. One way that distillers attempt to alter the chemistry of the wood is through charring the barrel, but is more or less char on the barrel better when aging whisky? 

"Back in 2005 when I started the project, my thinking was a bit like 'Tim the Tool-man Taylor' you know? More Power! I thought deeper levels of char would give the best results," says Dr. Livermore with a laugh. 

In order to test his hypothesis, he created a method of using infrared sensor technology to determine exactly how much "wood character" would be extracted into the whisky after just a 30 second scan of an empty barrel. The result: less is more. A char level of just 2mm seemed to deliver the best flavour results. 

"I was surprised! We learned that 2mm was the right amount for our whiskies." After the experiment was over, he turned to writing his dissertation and "kind of forgot about the barrels." 

Twelve years later he and his colleagues re-discovered the barrels in the Pike Creek warehouse and decided to try and make something with them. "It evolved quite organically, there was a lot of interest in our other Rare Cask bottles so we wanted to see how these whiskies might work." Containing a mix of what would have been Red Letter, Lot 40 and a double distilled rye, Dissertation is bottled at 46.1% ABV, is non chill-filtered and shows natural colour.   

Given the title of the whisky, I ask if there's something he'd like people to take away when sampling this dram. "I think we're challenging the status quo of the category. We're not making caramel-flavoured vodka here.... so let's stop apologizing for Canadian whisky; other countries recognize our success before we do! We can make quality whisky that consistently wins international awards." 

Dubbed The Ancestor, Dewar's 12 year old blended Scotch whisky contains up to 40 aged malt and grain whiskies  

that were "double matured." After the initial blending and marrying, the blend was left to mature in oak casks for an additional 6 months before being bottled at 40% ABV. Dewar's 12 is undoubtedly chill-filtered and likely contains colouring. 

Nose: Lightly floral and fruity with aromas of red apples and raisins accompanied by a whiff of marzipan and vanilla

Bastille 1789 Blended Whisky is the creation of French Master Distiller Jean-Marc Daucourt whose family name is typically associated with Cognac rather than whisky. Building upon the family tradition of distillation, Daucourt studied Scotch whisky production in Scotland for a number of years before launching his own uniquely French whisky. 

Using a combination of wheat and malted barley grown in Brittany in the north west of France and limestone-filtered spring water from Gensac in Grande Champagne, the Master Distiller sought to make a whisky evocative of the French terroir. The spirit was distilled in an alembic still, traditionally used for Cognac, and then aged for 5-7 years in a combination of French Limousin oak, cherry and acacia casks before vatting and bottling at 40% ABV. 

Nose: Inviting aromas of toffee, drizzled over toasted coconut mixed with dried apples, raisins, apricots and nuts accompanied by wood shavings and a sort of mossy dampness

On a recent trip I was lucky enough to track down a new-to-me expression of Springbank. Here in Toronto, it's a bit difficult to find much selection from the Campbeltown distillery on LCBO shelves so I always make a point to seek it out when travelling. I was thrilled to find one the 9,000 bottles distributed worldwide for this limited run of Springbank "Green."

Released in 2015, this edition of Springbank's yearly "Green" bottling was produced using organic barley and was fully matured in sherry casks for 13 years. Free from artificial colouring and chill-filtration, the whisky was bottled at 46% ABV. 

It's not often you see a cask finished bourbon and rarer still on LCBO shelves. I find it's always a bit of a gamble when buying whiskies with wine or port finishes; doubly so when it's bourbon! Yet despite all of the bad experiments I've tried over the years I'm still lured by the thrill of hitting upon one that gets it right. 

Finish: Refined and somewhat dry. The warming finish shows a moderate length with candied fruit and roasted peanuts in the skin! 

It's been a while since I've had this one and I thought I'd try it out again to see what, if anything, might have changed in the flavour profile. Like the 12 and 18 year old, this expression was matured in a combination of first-fill Bourbon casks and Sherry butts.

Finish: Dry and tannic with dark chocolate and dried fruit notes appearing late into the long, warming, finish. 

Although Glenburgie is among the oldest of the active distilleries in Scotland it has remained out of the spotlight and as such could be considered among the "lesser known" of Speyside's distilleries. Whisky production is known to have occurred on the current site as far back as 1810, yet Glenburgie was actually opened in 1829 by William Paul who hired renowned industrial architect Charles Doig to design the distillery.

With most of its single malt production destined for Ballantine's or Old Smuggler brands of blended scotch whisky, a sighting of a Glenburgie bottling is a rare occurrence. Over it's lifetime, Glenburgie has changed hands 9 times and each owner has restricted its output to blending with only a small amount of single malt made available to independent bottlers. For a number of years Glenburgie produced 2 different styles of single malt on the same site. In 1958, then-owners Hiram Walker & Sons installed a pair of Lomond stills to produce a variant called Glencraig supposedly named after former production director Willie Craig. Until the stills were removed in 1981 Glencraig was occasionally available as a single malt but, like Glenburgie, most of the spirit was used for blending. The current owners, Pernod-Ricard (held by Chivas Brothers), expanded the distillery's annual capacity to 4.2 million litres following their acquisition in 2005. 

Discovered by chance at an NB Liquor store in Rothesay, New Brunswick, it's the first bottle of Glenburgie I've ever seen. This 10 year old expression was matured in refill sherry hogsheads and first fill sherry butts and bottled at 40% ABV by independent bottlers Gordon & MacPhail.

 

'Tis the season of holiday parties, merry-making and gift giving so to help you select the perfect present for the drammers on your list, we've compiled a list of whisky and whisky-related gift ideas to help take out some of the guesswork. Ranging from under $30 to $200, any of these gifts will inspire both delight and admiration in your recipient. 

Prior to embarking on your shopping trip, there are a couple of steps one should take in advance whenever possible:

As always, every attempt has been made to ensure that all whiskies listed herein are available in the LCBO at the time of publication. The title link navigates to the LCBO page while the links in the description will direct you to one of our reviews of the whisky - if available - so if you'd like more detail the full notes are a click away.

Before we get going, I'd like to re-iterate an important message: please don't waste your money on whisky stones. Every year whisky drinkers the world over are gifted these cubes of soapstone, or balls of metal, meant to provide cooling effects to glasses of whisky without diluting them. While the intent of the product is admirable, their usefulness is highly suspect as we have written about before; and to top it all off, if your intended recipient has been drinking whisky for more than a year or two, the odds are quite high that they already have several sets from previous well wishers. In fact, spend the money on anything else. For the $15-$30 you spend on whisky stones, I guarantee your recipient would prefer that you took him/her out to a nice whisky bar and bought them a dram or two of "the good stuff" from the whisky list and then sat there and spent time with each other. 

It's been over 5 years since we last tasted this whisky and I was eager to sample it again to see what, if anything, might have changed aside from the labeling with the re-launch.

For such an established and beloved whisky brand, an 8 year old commemorative bottling is a bold move. Bottled at a robust 48% ABV and solely aged in American oak, the anniversary bottling takes a risk and invites the consumer to try a more, dare I say, "essential" version of Lagavulin than what's been previously available in recent times through official distillery bottlings. Reflecting on the past, the inspiration for this expression comes from one of the distillery's earliest glowing reviews and endorsements courtesy of Victorian-era Britain's most famous whisky writer, Alfred Barnard in his 1887 book, "The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom."

The story goes that in the late 1880s, Mr. Barnard visited Lagavulin and fell in love with the distillery. After sampling an 8 year old expression he described it as both "exceptionally fine" and "held in high repute... [as] there are only a few of the Scotch distilleries that turn out spirit for use as single whiskies and that made at Lagavulin can claim to be one of the most prominent." Truly high praise for the quality of the spirit; it's important to remember that during those days most, if not all, of a distillery's single malt output was used for blending. Single malt whisky, as we know it, was uncommon as a product for sale and its availability was typically limited to those who lived and worked in the vicinity of the distillery. For the vast majority of whisky drinkers, in both the domestic and the export market, bends of malt and grain whiskies were the only options.

Enchanted by the spirit and the beauty of the Lagavulin bay, Barnard wrote, "[there's] no prettier or more romantic spot could have been chosen for a distillery." I have to say, we couldn't agree more completely.

This bi-centennial bottling isn't an attempt at a re-creation of what Barnard tippled. Quite frankly it would be an impossible task without a time machine since nearly every aspect of production from equipment to process has changed over the decades. Rather, as Dr. Nick Morgan, head of whisky outreach at Diageo, explained in an interview with Forbes magazine, "we wanted to produce a whisky that tasted great--and something that was at an affordable price for a special bottling. So when we fell upon Barnard's tale of tasting an eight-year-old Lagavulin, everything fell into place. The challenge was to find the casks that would deliver against the promise. And we believe to have done that. But to be clear, it's not a recreation of what Barnard tasted...it's really an homage."

To those who might question the merits or price point of a younger version of a favourite whisky, Morgan offers a compelling rationale for the anniversary bottling, "the obsession with age statements and older whiskies is really a product of the late twentieth century. And we should remember that the majority of Scotch that's consumed around the world today doesn't carry an age statement. The fact of the matter is--as Lagavulin 8 Year Old demonstrates very clearly--is that older isn't better. It's simply different [and] in my experience, if you select your casks carefully, you can find many wonderful whiskies aged six, eight, or ten years that have very specific tastes and flavors that are lost with excessive aging--because the wood character begins to dominate. Age has become a lazy way of defining quality and price. And that's demonstrably not how it should be."

I'm convinced but, as they say, "the proof of the whisky is in the drinking!" 

Ok, maybe nobody says that but me...

Last week I was granted access to Corby's Pike Creek warehouses just outside of Windsor with Dr. Don Livermore, the Master Blender responsible for Lot No. 40, acting as guide. The sixteen rectangular, cinder block built, flat-topped warehouses aren't much to look at from the outside, but behind the walls of these utilitarian structures stand some 1.6 million barrels of whisky.

Inside, the warehouse is a delight to the senses of any whisky geek. Stacked to form a corridor from end to end of the building with cells branching off laterally, the barrels stand 6 high upon wooden palates. The damp, musty, smell of earth and wood sweetened by boozy apple and butterscotch is both figuratively and literally intoxicating. In fact, anyone working in a warehouse must wear a monitoring device that measures the ambient alcohol content in the air. While that may sound like a fun rush, you're more likely to pass out or worse from rapid asphyxiation. Only after the warehouse has had time to "air out" from opening the large rolling doors at either end of the building will Maturation Supervisor, Donald Campbell allow entry. Since the warehouses were purposefully built without electricity or heating so as to mitigate the risk of fires and allow the whisky to seasonally age there's no way to speed up the process by using conventional powered air ventilation. Without electricity there's no background hum of lights or rumble of vents and, for me, a sense of tranquility in that quiet space. Would that I could write all of my tasting notes from inside a whisky warehouse...

It was there, among the barrels, in an unexpected stroke of good fortune that Dr. Don offered us a special sample of Lot No. 40; non chill-filtered, straight from the cask without any added colouring or water and bottled at the robust strength of 55.8% ABV.