My wife and I rushed through a lunch at a small bar in Port Askaig in order to make it to the 2 pm Cask Strength Experience at Caol Ila. Funny story: Turns out we didn’t need to rush that much and could have had a heartier lunch because we were literally 5 minutes away. Well funny to me at least. I had been drinking. … Continue reading Caol Ila Distillery Tour
All the rumours are true: Bunnahabhain feels like the most remote and difficult to get to of all the distilleries on Islay. The final stretch is spent driving a long way down a nondescript single lane road. What they don’t tell you is that the Bunnahabhain Distillery complex looks like something out of a nuclear fallout movie, with seemingly old and rundown industrial buildings. Any … Continue reading Bunnahabhain Warehouse 9 Tasting
After Lagavulin, we ate a lovely lunch at the Islay Hotel, where we ended up getting seated beside and chatting with an Australian that had made the trip to Islay on his own. Happily full and ready to go, we were off on the 40-minute drive to Bruichladdich. As this was my wife’s first time driving on this trip, I was understandably nervous and sober … Continue reading Bruichladdich Warehouse Experience
My wife was kind enough to indulge my whisky obsession and not veto my idea to make the trip to Islay, aka Whisky Mecca, during our trip to Scotland. She said that I could go to as many distilleries as I could fit into three days on Islay. Well, the joke is on her because the answer to that question is 7 in what turned … Continue reading Lagavulin Warehouse Demonstration
Central City Brewing has been a stalwart in the craft brewing scene in BC since 2003 with their Red Racer line, and entered the distilling game in 2013. Brewmaster Gary Lohin and Head Distiller Stuart McKinnon used their collective expertise to develop an innovative line-up of Lohin McKinnon single malts. The regular Single Malt did very well in our inaugural Great Canadian Whisky Tasting in 2017, as did their … Continue reading Distillery Spotlight: Central City’s Lohin McKinnon Single Malts
We were surprised last year when we only got a few bottles that qualified for this category, (and even some of those could have been put in multiple), and then this year we were overwhelmed with the sheer number of entrants! We split this category randomly into two sessions, took our top 3 from each group of 8 and then put those head to head … Continue reading 2018 TWS Whisky Awards: Canadian Whiskies
Our inaugural tasting’s single malt category was a highlight, and as primarily Scotch drinkers, we’re always excited to see the progress Canada is making in this category. We have a few repeats and a few new entrants in the category this year and were very excited to see how they stacked up. As always, these were tasted blind and are presented in the order in … Continue reading 2018 TWS Whisky Awards: Single Malts
Last year we didn’t receive any true rye-based whiskies, and so we were excited to get a bunch of them this year enabling us to create this category for 2018! Some are bottles that have long been commercially available while others are new releases or barrel samples, but it was great to see many distilleries producing the essence of what defines Canadian whisky. Here are the ryes … Continue reading 2018 TWS Whisky Awards: Ryes
Last year, one of the highlights of the TWS Whisky Awards was the opportunity to try some under-aged spirits from Canadian distilleries across the country. We decided to continue this category so our followers could follow the progress of young distilleries as their barrels age! The bottles are listed in the order we tasted them. We tasted them all blind, and our notes and the … Continue reading 2018 TWS Whisky Awards: Under-aged Whiskies
A year ago, the Toronto Whisky Society founders decided to commemorate Canada’s 150th birthday with a competition dedicated to Canadian whisky from across the country and various categories. The feedback we got on it from distilleries and readers was so positive that we decided to make it an annual event! For 2018, we made a couple of improvements, based on the feedback we got: We … Continue reading 2018 TWS WHISKY AWARDS – Intro
Review: Glenfiddich Experimental Series Fire & Cane 43% ABV No age statement Peated malt Finished in Latin rum casks First and foremost, we would like to thank Glenfiddich and their Canadian ambassador Beth Havers for letting a couple Toronto Whisky Society members try the new Glenfiddich Fire & Cane release. Below are the combined notes and scores of the three TWS members who had a … Continue reading Review: Glenfiddich Experimental Series Fire & Cane
On June 2nd we celebrated yet another year of Ardbeg. But what is Ardbeg Day? For those of you like myself, Ardbeg Day was always something that “other whisky nerds” in “other countries” went to, drinking “otherworldly Ardbeg”. Sometimes literally, in the case of the year with Galileo (yes, the specific whisky that went into space wasn’t Galileo, I know, but that last line sounded … Continue reading Ardbeg Day 2018 – Toronto
Toronto Whisky Society 