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Forty Creek Barrel Select
Distillery: Forty Creek Distillery, Grimsby, Ontario, Canada Age: Blended Proof: 80 Nose: Butter, custard, vanilla (specifically vanilla yogurt), and caramel. Also dried pears, a touch of roasted nuts, and a subdued -but still present- grain/rubbing alcohol note. This latter is what usually steers me away from the Canadians, but it is faint here: overall a nice nose. Palate: Gentle and sweet attack with noticeable malt influence. Starts off like Irish or a sweeter blended Scotch in this regard. Corn sweetness follows with only a small amount of rye spice. Color: Light Yellow Notes: Many Canadian whisky connoisseurs consider Forty Creek whiskies to be the most exciting recent arrivals on the Canadian whisky scene. They exemplify those whisky profiles that we love here in Canada: hard spicy rye, nutty barley, and sweet succulent corn. How odd, but typically Canadian, it is then, that Forty Creek achieved its first successes, not in Canada, but in the USA. Canadian whisky is very popular in America, though the best sellers tend to be a little sweeter than the Canadian palate prefers. Leave it to Texas though, that hotbed of Canadian whisky lovers, to put Forty Creek on the whisky map. Believe it or not, the highly recommended Barrel Select is the entry-level whisky of the Forty Creek line although it certainly holds its own against its more expensive siblings. |
