滨听am always surprised when people walk in to our distillery and inquire, 鈥淲here鈥檚 your whiskey?鈥� It happens often enough that we should let the cat out of the bag and discuss brown booze.
Whiskey is aged. Some aren鈥檛 and are called things like White Dog, White Lightning, etc. In my opinion, they aren鈥檛 whiskey. They are best used for such things as stain removal.聽
When making whiskey, deeper cuts are made into the distillation process of the heads and the hearts. This is one of the places the flavour comes from.聽
And the hangovers. In aged spirits, 60 to 70 per cent of the flavour comes from the oak aging. Once upon a time the scotch industry relied heavily on the sherry industry for its barrels. With sherry in such sharp decline (shame, really), the Scots are now turning to the bourbon industry for its barrels, as are many producers here in Canada. The bourbon industry was wise back in the day stating that the barrel could only be used once.聽
One would assume that was for flavour profile but in actual fact it was to keep the coopers in business. There are very few coopers in this day and age. It takes seven years of apprenticeship and is an incredible craft. We lost our Okanagan cooper about a year ago; as the competition in the wine industry steadily rose, the wineries weren鈥檛 using the local craftsmen and were sourcing their barrels from elsewhere.聽
A big piece of our history that is a secret to many is that what is known as Canadian rye is not 100 per cent rye whiskey. You see, Canada and the U.S. had prohibition at different times. When the U.S. was dry, Americans were getting their whiskey from Canada. Our southern brethren liked their whiskey (or in their case, whisky) a bit on the sweeter side, so Canadian producers were making 鈥淐anadian rye鈥� with a bill of mostly corn mash with some rye.聽
True rye is made solely from rye. It is a tougher, gloopier product to work with and many distillers choose not to produce it, which is unfortunate because the results are amazing.聽
All kinds of vintage cocktails were designed with true rye in mind, so trying your hand at them with such a product can yield a beautiful albeit different result. Alberta Premium has been holding the torch for 100 per cent rye for some time now and is great bang for your buck. Lot 40 and Forty Creek make good stuff. Rittenhouse Rye out of Pennsylvania is a fine specimen as well.聽
Aging lends so many beautiful qualities to such things as mezcal, tequila, scotch, bourbon, rye, brandy, rum and even gin. The unfortunate part is that it can鈥檛 be rushed. Whiskey needs to spend at least three years in the barrel before it can even be called whiskey. That said, if you ask any distiller, they will tell you that it needs at least four, even five to soften and integrate.聽
Each spirit category has its own regulations around how much aging for which qualification. In the case of tequila, reposado is aged at least two months and up to a year. Anejo is at least one year and up to three. In the case of extra anejo, over three. Some categories and their label advertising can be confusing (if not a little misleading), so buyer beware. There is a lot of 鈥� ahem 鈥� research to be done.聽
Aging is of significant importance when it comes to scotch (produced only in Scotland), whiskey and brandy. Mezcal, rum and tequila, however, are in a class of their own.聽
So much character can be extracted in the distillation process from the agave (in the case of Mezcal and Tequila) and the sugarcane or sugarcane juice (rum and rum agricole) that drinking an unaged or low aged spirit can be quite pleasant and nice in cocktails.聽
Squamish鈥檚 private stores have a nice selection of aged spirits.聽
Mix up a Sazerac, Manhattan, old fashioned or a Crusta. Experiment for your friends and enjoy the warmth and depth aged spirits bring.聽
Just don鈥檛 forget to drink lots of water!
