A former member visited the Spring Mill Distillery back in early 2020, very early on in its history before they’d even released a fully aged whisky, and in 2024, John Sleeman and his sons Cooper and Quinn invited a busload of whisky lovers to the distillery for a tour, tasting and dinner. Having family in the Guelph area, and an uncle-in-law that actually did some of the engineering work for the distillery, it was hard to pass up the opportunity.

They originally were going to build and had actually broken ground further east, but when they found out this beautiful old mill building on the bank of the speed river was at one point owned by an ancestor of theirs in the 1800s, and actually had been used for illicit distillation during prohibition, they abandoned the other location and set up shop here.

We started the event with some cocktails and a quick whisky tasting of their core range. Their traditional straight whisky is a great bourbon alternative in these strange times (and has fooled some bourbon aficionados when tasted blind), the sherry finished malt is a fantastic example of a Canadian single malt, and the Cooper’s Rye is a great 100% Canadian rye using Canadian oak. The classic Rye whisky is 75% corn with 25% rye, some using virgin oak.

After this, we headed into the distillery for the tour. They use classic copper pot Forsythe stills and have a coffey still as well, used for their gin, vodka, liqueurs and mixed drink lines .

Their washbacks are quite unique, made of Canadian Douglas fir, and are only the 3rd and 4th examples of these in the world!

Quinn (who is the family’s cooper and the namesake of the Cooper’s Rye – not to be confused with his brother Cooper!) trained in Scotland and the US to learn his trade. He currently makes 15-20 casks per year and repairs the used casks that come in as well. For their Canadian oak casks, they use oaks grown in Shakespeare, Ontario and season them 18 months before using them. They fire them to about a level 3 char.

We then had the opportunity to have dinner with the Sleemans which was the highlight of the event. Their space is fantastic for private events like weddings, and they have plans to bring in an on-site restaurant as well. They licensed the entire facility, including the women’s washroom, so that anyone at an event won’t have to leave their drink behind and feel at risk.

For me, the best part of the event was being seated next to John Sleeman himself (and across from Julie of @redlipwhiskydiary and Beth Havers / @whiskybeth. He showed us all his grandfathers brewing recipe book, passed down to him by his Aunt. I also had a chance to hear some of his business philosophy and bits of wisdom. A few that stuck with me was that he attributes his success to hiring smart people and experts, and letting them do their thing. His mistakes over the years can all be traced back to not listening to the experts. He also noted that if you bring in a new brand, or new people through acquisition, don’t wreck a good thing – let them keep doing what they were doing that attracted that opportunity.

After dinner was done, Cooper took a group of us up to the warehouse to see their casks (at the time, 735 barrels on site, another 600 off site), and taste a few draws from the barrel!

We tried an irish pot still style whisky which was very reminiscent of true Irish Whiskey, a malt in ex-bourbon cask at about 4.5yrs, a column distilled malt and a couple of others. Many of us were incredibly impressed at the quality after such a short period, and were happy to hear they have a private cask program that we may at some point participate in as a club (28 on site at the time, one of which required redacting the owners name!)

Overall, massive thanks to John Sleeman and Sons for their hospitality, wisdom shared, and commitment to making fantastic Canadian whiskies of all styles. The innovation and commitment to quality is admirable and I believe they’ll be a mainstay in Canadian whisky for decades to come!