Excerpt from the Introduction
Handles, mickeys, shots, or drams, no matter what its measure, Canadian whisky is a story of Canada. It is a story of a colony becoming a nation, of early settlers finding creative ways to adapt Old World practices to new and often hostile environments, a story of craftsmanship, ingenuity, family feuds, fortunes made, and legacies lost, and of 21st-century artisans reviving a pioneer enterprise that giant conglomerates, abetted by government, had long since absorbed.

The story begins with farmers protecting their crops from pests, and millers turning waste into something they could sell or feed to cattle. It tells of Canadians processing Canadian grain, Canadian water, and that other abundant ingredient, wood from Canada’s extensive forests, into something they could sell locally and abroad. Almost from the beginning, Canadian whisky enjoyed global repute, and it is still enjoyed in more than 160 countries. But, until recently, Canadian whisky received little attention as a distinct whisky style. Like Canadians them­selves, it tends to fly under the radar. Nevertheless, specialist and consumer media now cover Canadian whisky regularly. Connoisseurs line up to taste it at sampling events, and whisky clubs, once the bastions of Scotch, now celebrate Canadian whisky, too. And though Canada’s best whiskies sometimes do not make it out of the country, others are now found only beyond Canada’s borders. However, abroad—and, discouragingly, at home—much of the received wisdom about Canadian whisky is still fantasy.

Many of today’s misunderstandings began as hypotheses, based on limited information and passed on innocently. Most brands tell their story honestly, or at least try to. Yet even in today’s age of authenticity, a few vested interests have usurped the role of historians, massaging, embellishing, or just plain inventing hagiographic stories to reflect well on specific brands or styles of whisky. Sometimes people fill in gaps so that their stories conform with popular cliché. Other times, they leave out inconvenient facts to bolster a desired conclusion and not let the truth get in the way of a good story (or a sale). For instance, the avaricious financiers, indifferent industrialists, and disinterested successors who took control of some brands are made into romantic figures or simply vanish. On their social media feeds, in brand publications and on websites, and on brand-massaged or -created Wikipedia pages, a few cynical marketers tell stories crafted not to inform but to persuade. Some of their nonsense has become gospel by simple repetition.
So while information about Canadian whisky was once difficult to find because the industry rarely allowed prying eyes within its walls, today the truth sometimes gets lost in an oversupply of earnest, but misinformed, and some­times lavish brand presentations. Just the same, over the past decade or so, fans who recognize non sequiturs, conjecture, and reverse-engineered analyses have begun to tease out more reliable versions. However, the country is still huge, and travel within its borders expensive, so unfamiliar Canadian approaches are sometimes interpreted according to whisky concepts from elsewhere, and misconceptions arise. So to be clear, despite fervent assertions to the contrary, Canada does not have the most flexible regulations of major whisky-producing countries; the 9.09% rule was intended to take advantage of US tax incentives, not to help blenders improve mundane whisky; and grain neutral spirit is not permitted in Canadian whisky.
Canadian whisky is not Scotch and it is not bourbon. Most Scotch is not single malt whisky, and most American whisky is not bourbon—and even less is straight bourbon. So comparisons of Canadian whisky to Scotch or American whisky based on regulations for single malts or straight bourbon are either disingenuous or naïve. Canadian whisky did not descend directly from Irish or Scotch whisky, nor did it evolve in parallel with whisky in America. Rather, these two now-different North American styles developed along distinct but intertwined paths as part of a single evolution. In North America, making whisky began first in the United States, and over time ideas, recipes, equipment, practices, distillers, and whisky moved freely back and forth across the border. However, two distinct periods in American history led drinkers in the US to associate whisky with their northern neighbour.

The first of these developments was the American Civil War (1861–65), which, in addition to causing violent social and political upheaval, disrupted alcohol production throughout the Union and Confederate states. Thirsty Americans looked north to fill the void. The second disruption came with the Volstead Act. In 1920, Volstead ushered in nearly fourteen years of Prohibition in the United States. In his definitive history of the era, Last Call, Daniel Okrent called this period “a sequence of curves and switchbacks that would force the re-writing of the fundamental contract between citizen and government.” The act was socially convulsive and created deep rifts among groups who might otherwise get along. Progressives, feminists, libertarians, secularists, and fundamentalists who maybe enjoyed the occasional drink found no comfort in the legislation or the increasingly theatrical antics of its supporters. When Prohibition ended, American distillers had to start over, often with new processes, new recipes, and unfamiliar equipment. Meanwhile, Canada kept America’s bottles full.

Despite its stated purpose, Prohibition did not eliminate alcohol from the United States. It simply encouraged the marketplace to find more and more creative ways to bypass or ignore an essentially unenforceable law. In the process, the Volstead Act became founding legislation for organized crime in America. And though Canadian whisky may have made up 10% of the alcoholic beverages consumed during Prohibition, the ensuing folklore has created the false but nearly universal belief that Canadian whisky was the era’s drink of choice.

This book tells the story of Canadian whisky by taking the reader inside the bottle, the distillery, and the marketplace. It tells the story as it is revealed in early documents and independent reports, and as it is recalled in the memories of people who have lived many decades of Canadian whisky history. It presents insights gleaned through discussions with people who make Canadian whisky at each of Canada’s eight traditional whisky distilleries and many of its more than 200 microdistilleries. It is not intended to set the “official record” straight; however, it does challenge many dearly held beliefs and corrects some errors that unfortunately wiggled their way into its earlier editions of this book. For example, comments in earlier editions that JP Wiser’s successors guarded his recipes carefully, as brand representatives asserted when research for the first edition was underway, are mistaken. The recipes were either lost or discarded. And although historical tenet sometimes changes as new information emerges—as it has, for instance, with the McLaren Distillery—one thing is certain: in the marketplace, the most important ingredient in whisky is not the water, nor is it the grain. No: the most important ingredient is the story. Let’s get it right.