Canada’s Best Whisky

As part of this week’s Victoria Whisky Festival the Canadian Whisky Awards were held yesterday to recognize the best in Canadian Whisky. To be eligible, whiskies must be distilled and matured in Canada. An independent panel of whisky writers, bloggers, and journalists selects the winners after blind tasting each whisky.

Ten Victoria media folk are standing out in a Hotel Grand Pacific hallway waiting to be ushered into the Saturna Room where we tasted five of the best Canadian whiskies for 2013. Canadian Whisky (also known as rye) is growing at a rate of 25% globally. The USA is the biggest consumer of Canadian Whisky accounting for 70% of what is produced.

It was an eye opening experience having all the best ryes lined up for comparison. Each showed different characteristics, ­some had that obvious rye-spicy-ness, others had a citrus pith finish (like when you bite into a citrus fruit and you get that slight rind bitterness following the the sweetness). What was very noticeable in every whisky was that they all were very robust and full flavoured.

I would recommend picking up any of the five bottles, but of course, the grand prize winner would be an amazing addition to your collection.

The winners are…

Grand prize – best Canadian whisky of the year:

Corby’s Lot 40 2012

Chairman of the Judges, Davin de Kergommeaux, called Lot No. 40 “The very essence of what rye whisky is all about.”

Gold medals:

Alberta Premium Dark Horse

Forty Creek Heart of Gold

Masterson’s 10 –year-old Straight Rye Whiskey

Crown Royal Black

A complete list of the winners is available at www.canadianwhisky.org