An Interview with Master Blender, Bill Ashburn | Forty Creek Distillery (Grimsby, Ontario, Canada)

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)

[Review] North Star Spirits Vega 22 Year Old Blended Malt

I recently purchased a few whiskies that a friend grabbed for me out West, two of which were split and one I kept for myself out of curiosity because it was a pretty good deal for a 22 year old blended malt at cask strength aged in what appears like sherry casks. It’s also a blend from a newer IB called North Star Spirits who … Continue reading [Review] North Star Spirits Vega 22 Year Old Blended Malt

J.P. Wiser’s NHL Alumni Series

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

2019 TWS Whisky Awards: Canadian Blended Whisky

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

2018 TWS Whisky Awards: Canadian Whiskies

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