I feel like occasionally I get curious about Canadian whisky and dip back across the 48th Parallel to see if I can figure out just what’s up with it. It doesn’t have a good reputation on the Interwebs. (See also: ‘The Problem With Canadian Whisky’, ‘Why The World Overlooked Canadian Whisky’) It seems to be a permanent fixture of the middle and bottom shelves at your local store and with whiskey (or whisky, whichever you prefer) a worldwide phenomenon, it got me curious again.
American bourbon, rye, and sour mash are everywhere here for obvious reasons. This is America, we’re going to have a plethora of domestic whiskey readily available. (I would say the same would apply to every other country. In Japan, a plethora of Japanese whiskey, in Scotland, a plethora of scotch, etc.) Scotch whisky is well-established and you’ll see some Japanese whiskey on the shelves of your local grocery store as well- but the country that really seems to be making inroads into the store shelves at the moment is Ireland. Every time I check out the local store shelves, it seems like I see more and more Irish whiskey, but I don’t see a similar explosion of variety from north of the border. So what’s up with that?
The internet seems to put it down to overregulation and a lack of imagination of producers north of the border. (If you click the link, there’s a pretty decent discussion about keeping the good stuff at home, too- so maybe there’s good Canadian whiskey out there, they just keep it all to themselves. The Swiss do the same thing with their chocolate, so seems fair.) There also seems to be wide agreement that because stuff from Up North tends to be blended, most whiskey drinkers have been indoctrinated into thinking that blended whiskies are somehow inferior. I don’t buy into that— I know that the attitude is out there, but to me, it’s like the people you see on the Internet with huge whiskey collections that they post. I’m more interested in the experience of drinking it than having it and I’ll try anything once- when it comes to whiskey, anyway.
But I also think that there’s more Canadian whiskey on the shelf than people realize. A dig back through the archives- and I went deep, deep, a couple of blog iterations back to check- revealed that I’ve done tastings on the following:
So, it’s not like I’ve ignored Canadian whisky over the years. It’s just that I don’t really know what to think about it. But I went back to the well and scored a handle of the ubiquitous and ever-present Black Velvet and here’s what I got from the tasting notes:
Color: Dark yellow— if you want to be fancy about it, I’d call it ‘rich honey’, but dark yellow works just as well.
Nose: There’s a strong booze smell right at the top that singes the nose hairs a bit. It’s hard to unpack, but I’d say there are notes of caramel and brown sugar with an undercurrent of fruit of some kind— I’d call it ‘crisp fruit’ leaning more towards the apple territory, but I couldn’t get place my finger on it. (It’s also worth noting that I probably have a horrible nose for smelling at the moment, given the pollen floating around, but I do what I can.)
Body: Sits lightly on the tongue, but it’s not watery. I absolutely see where it gets its name from, because it’s smooth as hell- exactly like velvet. If there’s a taste to it, I’d say caramel- soft, smooth caramel. A minor nit to pick here is that it kind of sticks to your mouth in a way that seems kind of chalky and not super pleasant.
Finish: This is dangerous drinkable. The burn doesn’t hit you until it’s right down in your guy and even then the warmth radiates out pleasantly and not in a heartburn type of way.
Bonus Thoughts: On the rocks? Yes, please. Straight up? Doable and you could easily get pickled just drinking this stuff straight- it’s that good. As a mixer, it’s smooth enough to be ideal with just about anything you can think of.
Overall: I am very much a member of Team ‘Drink What You Like’ and while it would be great to see more variety from Up North, I think stuff like Black Velvet has its place in the pecking order and should get, if not flowers, then certainly a shout out occasionally. Sometimes it’s nice to just have a versatile whisky that you can mix, drink straight, on the rocks and do whatever you want with. I can’t say I’ve drunk a lot of blended stuff over the years, but maybe I’ll have to change that going forward. My Grade: 7/10