Named after two rivers in British Columbia, Canada, it is blended and bottled by Heaven Hill Distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky the whisky is the fruit of a collaboration with a famous Canadian whisky man, inspired blender, and close friend, Paul Cerka. The project is the culmination of three years of research and arduous tastings.
The 84-proof whiskey is backed by WES brands which also supports Jamie Foxx’s Brown Sugar Bourbon and Flecha Azul tequila endorsed by actor Mark Wahlberg and co-founded by entrepreneur Aron Marquez and professional Mexican golfer Abraham Ancer.
Kiefer Sutherland, whose latest movies are “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” and “Juror No. 2”, directed by Clint Eastwood, has launched Red Bank Canadian Whisky.
“What I found so fascinating about Red Bank and this journey developing the whisky is the incredible pride Canadians take in themselves and their country. I was born in England but grew up in Canada. Red Bank is authentically Canadian.”
The whisky, made in Nova Scotia by master distiller, Michel Marcel, won Gold at this year’s prestigious San Francisco World Spirits Competition. The rye and wheat whiskies are aged in new American oak barrels, while the corn whisky is aged in bourbon barrels.
The whisky pays tribute to Red Bank, situated on Canada’s Atlantic Coast where some of the world’s finest whisky is now being crafted.
When it comes to good whisky if you don’t stray too far from Grimsby and Windsor you won’t go too far wrong.
A Dissertation is worthwhile too.
Canadian whisky wins awards, but somehow, for so many wrong reasons, it was overlooked, ignored, and perceived by too many – especially in the States as inferior. Not so now. Preconceptions are being rethought and overturned. North of the 49th parallel, great whiskies are being made like Pendleton’s creamy $125 20-Year-Old Director’s Reserve.
Alberta’s Highland Distilleries is making some innovative whiskies such as Ginger Lime Whisky, Wild Cinnamon, Sweet Sippin’ Maple whisky, the 50% Thunderbolt, Centennial Rye, and Ninety 20 Year Old. Revel Stoke has a peanut butter whisky. So these days it’s not all straight rye, rye, and only rye.
JP Wiser’s Dissertation is special. In celebration of whisky maker Dr. Don Livermore’s PhD, it uses the research he did into cask usage to create a spice, rye-forward whisky with a rich backbone of vanilla, toffee, and spice. J.P.Wiser”, the oldest continuously- producing whisky distillery in Canada, goes back to 1857 when Canada wasn’t even called Canada.
It has launched The Decades Series, which features a 42-year-old expression distilled when the Canadian whisky industry was in a depression. At the time, the brand’s namesake and founder was relocating the distillery to its current location in Windsor, Ontario. Also in Ontario, you have the likes of Gooderham & Worts (1832), founded by a Toronto banker and an English mill owner (try its Little Trinity), and “Gibson’s Finest” which was founded by an Irish spirits merchant re-locating in Prohibition from Pennsylvania.
The excellent Grimsby-based, Campari-owned Forty Creek’s” master distiller, Bill Ashburn, is also a world dog breeding champion.
Canada’s best single malts include Twe Brewers Yukon and Macaloneys, New Scotland’s (Nova Scotia’s) “Glen Breton” made at the Glenora distillery, which was the first single malt in North America. All are available through www.masterofmalt.com.
Until fairly recently, Canadian whisky has been dominated by a handful of big companies. Forty Creek’s Copper Pot Reserve inspired a renaissance in Canadian distilling.
“Canadian Club” continues to fly the flag. Al Capone was one of the first celebrity “influencers” of “Club” after Hiram Walker’s 1858 Detroit Distillery moved up to Windsor, Ontario during Prohibition. It was an exclusive brand. The Whisky Exchange is selling a bottle distilled in 1967 for £225.
A bottle of 1979 Bush Pilot is available for £500. The brand was Marilyn Smith’s tribute to her father, Fred Johnson who founded Great Northern Skyways flying the wealthy of Detroit to the Blind River area of Ontario to hunt and fish. The pilots would along unmarked bottles of whisky to help them ward off the arctic chill. The local staff at Hiram Walker’s distillery in Windsor, Ontario named these bottles “The Bush Pilot’s Private Reserve.”
Newfoundland has Signal Hill.
Super-premium “Alberta Dark Horse” or Alberta Dark Rye is made from six and twelve years of rye, corn whisky, and sherry. It has “a nose like wet cement and the generous scent of torrefaction”. It is named after a racehorse owned by Frank McMahon who founded Alberta Distillers in 1946.
Although bottled in Vermont, founded in 2015 by Raj Peter Bhakta, “WhistlePig” is the major progressive flagbearer as is Seagram’s.
Experts believe that Canada is on the cusp of a whisky renaissance. The old labels are being challenged by the likes of Craig De Blois and Michael Brown’s “Howitzer”, cold brew “Kavi whisky, Toronto’s micro-distillery, “Stalk & Barrel” and Ken Winchester’s Devine Distillery in Victoria British Columbia which produces a “tradition-ingrained, terroir-inspired” whisky, “Ancient Grains” distilled from DC barley, spelled, emmer, Khorasan and einkorn-the ancestors of all modern grains.
Also on the West Coast, Vancouver Island’s “Sheringham” is turning out excellent small-batch whiskies by distiller Jason MacIsaac with a variety of mashbills, including red fife, a Canadian heritage grain. There is also Patrick Evans’s “Shelter Point”, an artisanal single malt made from two-row barley and aged in American Oak.
Master blender Andres Faustirelli’s Bearface portfolio includes his One Eleven Series, (the blending of ten parts of whisky with one part of another spirit, wine, or in his case, mezcal. In his Wilderness Series, he uses foraged Matsutake mushrooms that are cask-infused with a differently sourced (and differently aged) Bearface.
Canadian whiskey has a style, taste as well as various spellings all of its own. Instead of mashing all the grains together, Canadian distillers mash, ferment, distill, and age each type of grain separately. Then those finished whiskies are combined.
Much modern Canadian whisky represents value-for-money luxury. Seek out Dillon’s small batch.
The approach of Geoff and Peter Dillon at their grain-to-glass micro-distillery in Beamsville in Niagara Valley wine country, Ontario is typical of Canadian whisky makers. Says Peter: “To be called Canadian Rye Whisky means something. To be called 100% Rye Whisky made in Canada means something more. It means pride. It means at least three full years of aging in oak casks. It means made from nothing but pure rye grain – no barley, no wheat, and no corn. It means distilled one batch at a time in pot stills – not continuously in columns.
“It means no flavorings and no colorings were ever added. It means what we put on the label is what is inside the bottle. It means liquid truth. It means years and years of planning, investment, hard work, sweat, tears, luck, and good people.”
Adds son, Geoff: “Our goal is simple. To restore the world’s respect for Canadian whisky.”
