I'm still looking for good, affordable, available whiskey and it's hard to get more affordable than this. Canadian Club's 100% rye is distilled at Alberta Distillers (the distillery that makes most of the Canadian rye available in the US - Whistlepig, Masterson's, Jefferson's, Alberta Premium Dark Batch, etc.). This one comes from the actual owner of the distillery: Beam Suntory, and I picked it up for a whopping $13.Canadian Club 100% Rye, 40% abv ($13)
The nose is botanical with lots of herbal notes and some honey sweetness. The palate is very light with some black tea, a very slight mint note and pepper leading into a peppery finish. Overall it's quite bland.
This is a very light and soft compared to the bold mint and pickle notes in the American bottlings of Alberta rye. My guess would be that this is a blend. (You can have a 100% rye blend because Canadian blends combine base whiskies distilled to a very high proof with lower proof, more flavorful whiskeys). This could even be one of those base whiskeys. There's just not much to it. The saving grace is that I'm only out $13, as opposed to the $85 I frittered away on the WhistlePig Farmstock.
It's that damn Canadian obsession of bottling their whiskies at 80 proof, flavor be damned. Yes, there are exceptions, but this one obviously hews to the general rule.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the high distillation proof was a bigger problem than the low bottling proof.
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