Canadian Whisky Smith

Waiting to board the plane south for a special session of Sommer School at the Whiskey Marketing School!

Day 1 is focusing on something near and dear: Canadian Whisky 🥃🍁

A few years ago, the Calgary Duty Free shop was featuring a "local" spirit from Sortilege...in Quebec. 🤪🤨

It was frustrating because not only is that more than half a nation away, it meant that truly local products weren't even represented...and there were already so many producers on the scene.

As I prepare to go talk about the state of the industry in Canada, it fills my heart with joy to see a true representation of local whisky and spirits on full display.

Cheers, Canada...🍁🥃

I absolutely LOVE getting to be an actual "Whisky Smith"!

Last week I was invited to participate in the Bridgeland Distillery Father's Day Blending Class. And it was so much fun getting to play.

The afternoon started with a brief tour of the distillery and a visit to the barrel room, and then dove right into the basics of building a whisky.

What a lot of folks don't know is...unless it's specifically a single cask, your whisky has been crafted by a blender.

In some cases, the blend has to match a specific flavour profile for a brand expression. Making whisky isn't like baking a cake. You can use all the same ingredients, follow all the same steps, and in 3+ years, all your barrels can taste different from each other. The blender then feathers the mix to keep the flavour on point.

But in other cases, the blend is intended to be creative! An opportunity to craft something new or unique.

During the session, I ended up creating three and a half blends...plus an unofficial Blendaggedon. They were all pretty tasty, and the Blendaggedon (a mix of everything left in my glasses at the end) was surprisingly sippable.

However, two of the recipes really came together with flavours I loved. I simply could not choose between them.

So I bought a second bottle 😆🥃

The Distillery had to prep all the custom blends for pick-up, so I stopped in on my way home tonight to collect them.

Not sure when I'll open these up, but hoping my Halloween Caramel Apple and Vanilla Ice Cream with a Cherry on Top turned out as well as I remember!