As always, we finished off the year with our AGM and heels party! We had about 30 members come out, bring bottles with ~1/3 left, covered off a little business including exec elections for the next few years, and then sampled dozens of great drams together! At the end, we raffle off the leftovers for folks to take home! Sadly we didn’t get a good … Continue reading AGM & Heels Party 2025
We first did a Laphroaig/Bowmore event with Matt Jones way back in 2018, and as many members love these brands, we felt it time for a revisit 7 years later! Working with James Neil and Mike Mclean of Beam Suntory, we pulled together an incredible line-up for both brands. We started with a trio of Bowmore 15 expressions, all showcasing different styles of sherry influence. … Continue reading Laphroig & Bowmore Re-visited
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
So after a full day of tasting, finding winners of 4 categories and 2 sub-categories, We had to determine our overall winners. 7 finalists were compared blind head-to-head and re-ranked to find our winners for the year. Congratulations to Macaloney’s, Two Brewers and Okanagan for having multiple entries each in the finals! Here are the winners: HONOURABLE MENTIONS RUNNER-UP 2023 CANADIAN MALT OF THE YEAR … Continue reading TWS CANADIAN SINGLE MALTS OF THE YEAR
These malts participated in other categories but were distinct in that they came from a single barrel before release. You can see the full details of this single STR Port barrel Macaloney’s release in the finished whisky category. the LMD release was a single barrel Islay cask finished whisky, which participated in the peated category. The Two Brewers Release 37 single cask was the big … Continue reading Single Cask Malts
We had two cask strength malts submitted, from the Yukon and BC. Release 37 from Two Brewers is a single cask release made from standard barley plus Honey malt and Vienna malt. It was aged 8 years in a second use white oak barrel. This Okanagan Laird of Fintry Black label is cask strength, aged 5 years in white oak and finished for 6 months … Continue reading Cask Strength Malts
In 2017 we first launched the Annual TWS Canadian Whisky Awards, handing out medals across multiple Canadian whisky categories. Our process was an in-person blind tasting of whiskies by category, collaboratively aligning on which were the best. We continued this in 2018 and 2019, with fantastic results. When COVID hit in 2020, our in-person process wasn’t feasible, so we cancelled the awards for that year, … Continue reading 2023 Toronto Whisky Awards – Canadian Single Malts
Despite a relatively small sample size, Imperial has become one of my very favourite Speyside distilleries. It delivers the tropical and waxy goods regularly, and despite closing in 1998 it doesn’t (yet) have the same dead-distillery premium on it as many of the bigger names. This Signatory bottling from 1976 will be the oldest vintage Imperial I’ve ever tried. Colour: Straw. Nose: Sweet and fatty. … Continue reading [Review] Imperial 19 1976 Signatory Vintage
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
The first tasting for the new year brought out some familiar faces to celebrate Glenfiddich with a couple stalwarts from their line-up, plus some new ones to the group: Long time friend of TWS Jamie Johnson led the evening with a fantastic lineup including: The 14 Bourbon barrel was familiar to most, but new to a few. The bourbon lovers in the room really loved … Continue reading Glenfiddich 2023 – first event of the year!
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
Toronto Whisky Society 