Around Christmas time there were tastings and more tastings… from reserve wines to single vintage Cognacs. Canadian Club contributed a 30 year old whiskey to the mix and made the rounds showing it off. I was fortunate to get not only a bottle of it but their 12 year old bottle and their basic 6 year.  What that lets me do is give you a recap of roughly three months of living with Canadian Club. It’s kind of like when Car and Driver writes up a vehicle after driving it for a while. The initial excitement wears off and you get a more complete perspective. Maybe that’s Motor Trend. And granted I wasn’t hitting the bottles daily but you get the picture.

I’ll also mention that I don’t have a favorite Whiskey. I do appreciate Makers but I also enjoy Johnny Walker or even a George Dickel, now that it’s owned by Diageo maybe I’ll be able to find it more often. Teacher’s is nice and Tullamore Dew has a special place in my heart.

Anyway, from what conversations and readings have told me, Canadian whisky has a stigma of being very woodsy and too sweet. Now I bouncy castle for sale should say that I get those flavors out of a Makers or a Knob Creek but then again I don’t find them unappealing. The nice thing here is that while I am singling out bottles for comparison I do have a range from Canadian Club. Straight up I’d say that the 12 year Classic is the sweetest but more in a way that is comparable to Tennessee whisky, I didn’t see any more of a single dimension to its sweetness. The 6 year on the other hand is a simple smooth whiskey that unfortunately didn’t jump out in any direction and was my least sampled over the past few months.

The 30 year old reserve is their 150th anniversary celebration in a bottle and it goes a long way to let the air out of the Canadian = sweet balloon. It has a distinct mash to it, definitely has room to breathe with a mellow oak and soft mouth feel. 30 years in oak didn’t corrupt it at all. It made me wonder, again, if home extra-aging is a good idea. This might be the year I try it. This was released in a 15,000 limited quantity and should be hard to find but accessible by this time. If you have the budget for it, and room in the front of the cabinet, it’s a great bottle that will certainly surprise people who haven’t thought of it since sneaking it out of dad’s den 30 years ago. Some of their copy reads “Damn right, my dad drank it.” They should live by product placement in ‘Mad Men’ for just that reason.