We held our AGM as usual in December 2023 and it was a great one, highlighted by amazing food (including a brisket smoked by member Sheps and Canada goose jerky hunted, prepared and cured by founding member and re-elected exec member Bryan. In addition to great food, we had some great whisky, including the leftovers from the 2023 TWS Canadian Single Malt awards, and a … Continue reading 2023 TWS AGM
We don’t know if it’s general inflation or just increased demand (spoiler: it’s inflation), but it seems that every time you turn around, the price of whisky has increased. It’s remarkable how many bottles, including ones well loved and formerly reasonably priced, have become priced out of the “every day” category. Since the holidays are fast approaching, at a recent TWS event, we asked the … Continue reading TWS’s Holiday Gift Guide / Best Whiskies under $100 at the LCBO
In September, TWS members visited the Hiram Walker Distillery in Windsor, Ontario. This wasn’t the first time for some of us, as the TWS founders visited in 2017. We toured the grain receiving, fermenters, the stills, the Pike Creek warehouses and then had a blending session with Dr. Don Livermore where we applied everything we learned (and tasted) to make our very own blends. Fueled … Continue reading Hiram Walker Distillery Visit 2023
Last year we acquired a collection of vintage malts and blends and have a series of events lined up to drink them with the club. The first of these was our Ardbeg tasting with Bry Simpson earlier this year which featured an Ardbeg 10 from the 80s. The next vintage tasting was comprised of the many old blends we received, and there were some real … Continue reading Vintage Blends Tasting
This is my first 50-year-old whisky, breaking my previous oldest-whisky record by a solid decade. It’s a blended scotch, bottled by the appropriately-named Blended Whisky Company in 2017. I couldn’t find any info on the composition of this blend, but no matter. Let’s give it a try! Nose: Very mellow. Musty notes of old leather and old furniture. Some vanilla buttercream and that particular old-grain … Continue reading [Review] The Half Century Blend 50-year-old Blended Scotch Whisky
Visiting Black Fox Distillery was a real treat, as we had tried their spirits in the 2018 Canadian whisky awards where they won in the under-aged spirit category! Compared to the industrial/roaring 20s feel of Lucky Bastard, Black Fox was quite the change – this is a huge, legit farm! Gorgeous grounds, stone building, rolling hills, farm activities for kids. It had it all! John … Continue reading Black Fox Distillery – Saskatoon
Our final event of each year is our Annual General Meeting & Heels Party. Yes, we had another heels party earlier in the year, but since we had to do them virtually the prior 2 years, we figured why not make up for lost time! The turnout was amazing and we got through some important business, including constitutional amendments, and the election of three new … Continue reading 2022 AGM & Heels Party
There are so many whisky clubs out there these days, and they take many different forms. Some have long histories and many chapters across the country who enjoy formal tastings with dinners. Others, like us, were millennial-founded and approach whisky from a very nerdy, inquisitive place, and that passion for trying new bottles leads to the pursuit of unique brands and bottlings. The Park Whiskey … Continue reading Park Whisky Society X Toronto Whisky Society tasting
Our AGM in 2021 was virtual once again due to COVID and whichever wave was hitting us at that time. Aside from the usual business, we did a pair of mystery drams like in 2020 and had the group guess on a variety of attributes: Out of a total possible points of 8 (4Qs x 2 samples), our big winner was Adam who got 6pts, … Continue reading AGM & Social 2021
This year has been quite a challenging one for many distillers, but potentially even more so for Ontario distillers. It’s been a hard 18 months of pandemic restrictions with not a lot of payback on the governmental side of things. Yet, whisky keeps flowing to the mouths of Canadians willing to support their domestic industry. Among those distillers are one of the big players in … Continue reading An Interview with Master Blender, Bill Ashburn | Forty Creek Distillery (Grimsby, Ontario, Canada)
We’re going to be honest here… when we first saw the J.P. Wiser’s Alumni Series get released, we assumed it was simply a marketing gimmick that would in all likelihood take existing whiskies and re-brand then with famous players’ names to up-sell the hockey fan market. We even told the folks at Corby this and that we didn’t feel these would appeal to the whisky … Continue reading J.P. Wiser’s NHL Alumni Series
This year, Toronto Whisky Society received 12 Canadian blended whiskies from 8 different distilleries ranging from large to small and from east to west. We tasted all of them blind in the randomized order below, and our rankings were anonymous. In the end, our #1 ranked whisky was unanimous. You’ll have to read through to the bottom to find out what it was! The Lineup: … Continue reading 2019 TWS Whisky Awards: Canadian Blended Whisky
Toronto Whisky Society 