Tastes

Four-star quality, five-star value. On the nose, there's thick honey, light smoke (campfire, not vegetal), big seaside-y brine. Moist cake (vanilla!) and nuts. A bit of water brings out some light fruitiness. On the taste, more peat and smoke, big brine, and a nice butterscotch. Peppery and citrusy. Dry smoke & spice finish. Canada and France account for more than 50% of Té Bheag's sales; I'm not sure you can even *find* it in a lot of other places. But it's sub-$40 Cdn. and just a remarkably lovely value whisky. Punches well above its weight-class.

You know what? This ain't bad. It ain't magic, but at $30 Cdn it's not bad. Like a slightly sharper, less smokey, fruitier JW Black equivalent. Smell is honey, vanilla, apple, salt, fresh herbs. Some berry flavour. A touch of pretzel dough, which is a note I get in a lot of lower-end blends. Taste is thin but surprisingly creamy. Faint smoke. Honey, pepper. Sherried fruits. Apple, plum. Smoky finish,with light oak, honey, and vanilla. Not a great whisky, but a steal for the price. Let it sit for 30 minutes before drinking and most of the off-notes fade entirely. Good bargain sipper.

Colour is surprisingly pale for a straight whiskey, hovering on the light-ish side of amber. Smell is sawdust, big vanilla, and the deli smells I often associate with Wild Turkey: huge caraway seed, a bit of dill, grainy rye, black pepper. A bit of butterscotch/caramel, some candied cherries, some alcoholic fumes. Taste is mellower than expected, though there's some definite spice. More brining spices, a bit of cinnamon, vanilla, wood char. Mint, some green leafy flavour? Peppery here, too, and a finish of dry vanilla, dry wood, and something herbal. Body could be beefed up a bit, but I have no big complaints. This is a versatile whiskey: mellow and compelling enough to sip, but also at home in some of the great classic cocktails.

Colour is urine-pale, with spotty legs. Smell is barley sugar, lemon, unripe orchard fruits and slight stone fruits: a bit of pear or apple skin, slightly sugary. An initial spirity "white grape" kind of flavour I often associate with young malts. Taste has an initial sweetness, like watered down maple syrup, then lemon candies and more fruitiness. Crab apples? Slightly peppery. I don't quite get Distiller's insistence about "spice" here, though it does have a bit more kick than the standard 'fiddich/'livet "glens". A touch of black tea. Faint berries, maybe even a nuttiness. Short finish, but pleasant ( a nice green apple tart sweetness). Hard to rate--it hovers around the same price as a lot of entry level single malts and hits many of the same notes, though in a way that's different enough to at least change things up. I won't replace the bottle once it's done (there's just so much out there), but the profile and the price make it pretty darn drinkable. Craft presentation is a distinct plus, too.

Clearly sourced from Four Roses (like, for the time being, its younger sibling), the flavour profile is a bit of a drier, oakier version of some Four Roses Small Batch/Single Barrel hybrid. Nose and taste lean toward the "classic" bourbon notes: vanilla, caramel, a bit of peppery, rye spice, char, woody tannins, a bit of cola. Body is a bit a thin. It's a nice whiskey, at a pretty reasonable price (particularly in the face of some of the craziness that's going on now in the bourbon world). But it's also nowhere near as nice as the stuff Four Roses is bottling for themselves. Unfortunately, Four Roses has almost disappeared entirely from shelves in my local market (AB, Canada), so I suppose Bulleit 10 will do in a pinch.

Along with Lot 40, it's probably the pinnacle of the new breed of (American rye-esque) Canadian whiskies. Flavours of creamy, bright vanilla, butterscotch, caramel, natural (not fake syrupy) maple, big, big oak--fresh cut and toasted, with a bit of cedar, too. Wood-sap. Green apples, red apples, spicy rye, dusty rye, rye bread, pickles, sourdough, clove, cinnamon. . . . Velvety taste but with a nice rye spice, white pepper, granny smith, fresh bread and baking spices, faint citrus. Oak-y on the finish. Legacy is the star of the Wiser's line-up, and it's not even the most expensive regular offering (hell, it's not even the *second* most expensive regular offering, and it blows both the 18 year and the Red Letter away). Recognizably Canadian, but demonstrative of the fact that, if pressed, the Canadian whisky industry can do really interesting things without losing what makes the style unique. Delicate and light, and yet complex, too: balanced, lovely oak-spice flavours, and just a bit of sweetness. Take your Crown Royal Northern Harvest, this is--perennially--my Canadian whisky of the year.

Spirits journalists seem to have a thing for Highwood. Maybe it's the history, as there's an interesting story behind much of their whisky: hyper-aged corn whiskey that was included in their purchase of the (I believe) Potters distillery. But that's all it is: a good story. It's 100% corn whisky, and there's not much you can do, cooperage-wise, to make 100% corn whisky taste particularly compelling. Soft, smooth, honey, maple, timber. Sweet. Citrus zest, woodchips, toasted oak. Fragrant flowers, creamy. It's . . . Canadian whisky. It's mild. It's bland. It's not complex or interesting. About the nicest thing I can say about Century Reserve (and Highwood's other super-aged expressions, which are pulled from the same stocks) is that it's the most affordable 20+ year old whisky you'll ever get the chance to try.

Red Letter isn't sure whether it wants to be a member of the old guard (soft, sweet, vanilla, butterscotch, mild, maple) or the new guard (American rye-esque spicy, intense, grain-forward) of Canadian whisky, so it splits the difference and no one is happy about the compromise--particularly not at the $100+ price tag. On the nose: lots of cedar, cigar box, honeycomb, green apple, stewed fruits. A bit solvent-y, with caramel, vanilla, light wood-smoke, citrus, and maple. Taste is quite light, with wood spice, stewed fruits, green apple, vanilla, caramel, butterscotch, rye breadiness, clean wood flavours, some citrus pith and distant dill. Gingery, woody finish. It's a nice enough whisky (and kudos for being, to my knowledge, the ONLY non-chill filtered Canadian whisky on the market), it's just wildly overpriced: Wiser's Legacy is, at half the price, the far superior entry in the company's line-up.