2020 has been quite the year, and your Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus celebrations are likely to look a little different than normal, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be buying whisky for your friends and family! We’ve put together an updated 2020 Gift Guide to help you find the best options at the LCBO! WHISKY $61 AND UNDER Wild Turkey 101 – a great bourbon for $38 currently … Continue reading 2020 Holiday Whisky Gift Guide
Many of our members have been fans of the Northern Border Collection all the way back to when it was just a twinkle in Dr. Don Livermore’s eye, and we’ve had the good fortune to try each of the rare range releases over the past three years. For the inaugural line-up, we had Dave Mitton come in and introduce them to us. Last year, we … Continue reading 2019 Northern Border Collection Rare Range Tasting
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
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
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
A couple of years ago, Corby Spirit and Wine started their Rare Cask Series of whiskies – a collection of one-off bottlings with unique characteristics, production methods and stories – highlighting the innovative potential inherent in Canadian whisky and their warehouses. The first three releases were Last Barrels (a bourbon-style mashbill whisky), Dissertation (comprised of whiskies from Dr. Don Livermore’s PhD experiments), and Union 52 … Continue reading New Release Spotlight: J.P. Wiser’s Seasoned Oak 19 year
2017 was a great year for the Toronto Whisky Society (TWS), between hosting a number of wonderful tastings, visiting distilleries, reviewing whiskies, and of course all the great social events with members. It would be a waste to have all these great whisky lovers and not ask them for their whiskies of the year! Read below to see what whiskies were the highlights for a … Continue reading Toronto Whisky Society’s Whiskies of the Year 2017
We’ve written a few times about Corby’s recently released Northern Border Collection here, and that’s for a couple of reasons: It’s damn good whisky that is a bit of a paradigm shift for Canadian whisky Corby has been really good about reaching out to whisky lovers and groups like ours, letting us taste it and tell its story. So since by now you’ve heard it … Continue reading TWS Northern Border Collection Tasting
In this, the third part of our TWS Whisky Awards, we look at some whiskies that fall within the more classical Canadian Whisky category. In Part 1, we looked at some under-aged spirits and non-whiskies, and in Part 2 we evaluated some Canadian Single Malts. Here are the bottles, descriptions, tasting notes and rankings of the five Canadian Whiskies we evaluated: Last Mountain 100% Wheat … Continue reading TWS Whisky Awards 2017: Canadian Whiskies
As you’ll have seen from past group reviews and our trip to Hiram Walker last month (Pt1, Pt2, Pt3), we’re pretty big fans of what Dr. Don Livermore and the team at Corby/Pernod-Ricard are doing in the Canadian whisky category. From their Union 52 blend that includes some 52yr old Highland Scotch, to Last Barrels – a sour mash bourbon-style whisky, – to the use of virgin … Continue reading Exclusive Pre-Release Group Review: J.P. Wiser’s Dissertation
In Part 1, we covered grain, mashing and fermenting. In Part 2, we covered distillation, QA, barrelling and aging. Now we’re going to look at the final few steps in the whisky making process, our own attempt to do Don’s job of blending, and a trip into the Whisky Archives. Blending This step is where Don’s creative muscles are exercised. Unlike a single malt scotch, … Continue reading TWS visits Hiram Walker Distillery – Part 3
In Part 1 of the Toronto Whisky Society’s visit to the Hiram Walker Distillery we covered how they handle their grain, the mashing process and fermenting process. Next we move on to: Distillation Distillation is essentially selective evaporation to concentrate a substance and remove unwanted portions. In the spirits world, there are two types of stills: Continuous or column stills, and pot stills. At Hiram … Continue reading TWS visits Hiram Walker Distillery – Part 2
Toronto Whisky Society 