Dating a Canadian

[jinenjo]

No this is not about courting the female species of our neighbors up north. I'm trying to get clarity surrounding the dates printed on vintage bottles of Canadian whisky.

It's nice that there are even dates printed clearly on the tax strips of these bottles, but as I had read on some other posts, the year listed may indicate the date of distillation and not the bottling year. Is this so? I couldn't find a definitive answer, so I am asking this question directly.

Any help is most appreciated.

[bluesbassdad]

No this is not about courting the female species of our neighbors up north. I'm trying to get clarity surrounding the dates printed on vintage bottles of Canadian whisky.

It's nice that there are even dates printed clearly on the tax strips of these bottles, but as I had read on some other posts, the year listed may indicate the date of distillation and not the bottling year. Is this so? I couldn't find a definitive answer, so I am asking this question directly.

Any help is most appreciated.

Shucks. I was all set to tell you about my big crush on Anne Murray back in the 1970s.

Seriously, where's Gillman these days? Your question is the sort he loves.

Yours truly,

Dave Morefield

[cowdery]

I think it goes like this:

If you want to live forever, date a Canadian. You won't live forever, but it will seem like forever.

Except Anne Murray, of course.

[ThomasH]

On Canadian whisky tax stamps, thr year listed on the stamp is the year of distillation. Take the stated age of the whisky and project out from the year on the stamp to arrive at the year it was bottled!

Thomas

[jinenjo]

Thanks, Thomas. What if it is NAS? Like American bottles, do markings on the bottom indicate when it was bottled?

[ThomasH]

More than likely, the bottle marking will indicate closely when the whiskey was actually bottled. I have a bottle of Bush Pilot 13 Canadian that was only on the market a short time in the US before a lawsuit halted its distribution. It was bottled in 1995 and after finding a bottle a few years back, The tax stamp had 1982 marked on it. Years ago and despite having no official age statement, Crown Royal was averaging a 12yr age. The bottles would show up at retail and the tax stamp on them had a year that was just over 12 years earlier!

Thomas

[jinenjo]

So, in a way, this practice was not unlike bonded whiskey, where the spirit inside the bottle is known to have come from a single distillation season. Of course, we're talking blended whisky here. Meaning, it's not all a single distillate from the same year.

[jinenjo]

I want to revisit this. Recently, I've been getting more into Canadian whisky and have been enjoying them tremedously. They've been dusty bottles (of course :cool:).

Today I picked up Canadian Masterpiece...delicious, BTW. I'd also like to clear up what is in the bottle. When I had researched this a while ago, Gillman was wondering if this had some bourbon in it. It certainly does not. The back label states how it is a blend of six Canadian whiskies: Gimli, New Westminster, Waterloo, Annherstburn, Beaupre, and Montreal. It goes on further to say, "After maturing for many years these whiskies are skillfully blended under [our master blender's] personal supervision and slowly married to create this Masterpiece..."

The date on the strip is 1962. I'm still unclear about Canadian blends. Does this date include the ages of any or all GNS? Also, 1962 indicates that was when the oldest whiskey going into this blend was distilled, no?

[cowdery]

The date should be the youngest whiskey, not the oldest.

They probably wouldn't disclose any foreign spirits it contains.

[highlife]

I want to revisit this. Recently, I've been getting more into Canadian whisky and have been enjoying them tremedously. They've been dusty bottles (of course :cool:).

Today I picked up Canadian Masterpiece...delicious, BTW. I'd also like to clear up what is in the bottle. When I had researched this a while ago, Gillman was wondering if this had some bourbon in it. It certainly does not. The back label states how it is a blend of six Canadian whiskies: Gimli, New Westminster, Waterloo, Annherstburn, Beaupre, and Montreal. It goes on further to say, "After maturing for many years these whiskies are skillfully blended under [our master blender's] personal supervision and slowly married to create this Masterpiece..."

The date on the strip is 1962. I'm still unclear about Canadian blends. Does this date include the ages of any or all GNS? Also, 1962 indicates that was when the oldest whiskey going into this blend was distilled, no?

This is great to hear! I have a bottle dated 1961 in its original packaging, the red silk lined box. Can't wait to drink it, on it's 50th Birthday, 2011. Only a couple years to go!

[Bourbon Geek]

Thanks, Thomas. What if it is NAS? Like American bottles, do markings on the bottom indicate when it was bottled?

Be careful here ... if you are referring to the raised glass markings on the under side of the bottle ... those are various identifying marks placed there by the bottle maker. Typically there are 4 marks... one identifies the glass company, one identifies the actual bottling plant, one identifies the mold number, and one (if I remember correctly) identifies the year of the bottle drawings.

So... the markings are not totally useless to the avid drinker or collector, but you do need some inside information to glean anything of use regarding production dates...

For example, Maker's Mark bottles over the years have been made by at least Pierce, Ball, and Anchor ... and I think Owens, too. If you knew the transfer dates, you could look at the markings and determine not-earlier-than, and not-later-than ... bottling dates. And if you know which mark is for the drawings year ... you can always determine a not-earlier-than bottling date.

Otherwise, to the average Joe, the raised glass markings on teh bottom of thebottle are meaningless.

You could also date the bottlings by looking at the lot code ... if you could find and decipher it ... it always contains the bottling date, too ... frequently down to the minute. It is usually found on the back of the bottle near the bottom and is either laser etched or ink jet printed. These have been on most spirit bottles since the mid to late 1990's. The code is usually around 13 or so characters ... usually starts with the letter L (for Lot) ... and is a mix of letters and numbers. Buried in there is the bottling date ... written in a 4 or 5 digit Julien format ... for example today would be 9143 or 09143 ... (being the 143rd day of 2009)

[jinenjo]

I'm here to unearth this thread again. This time specifically about Crown Royal. I was enjoying the last bit of some CR, which had a tax strip dated 1959.

This could go into a new thread, but does anyone know what is the oldest aged distilate that CR puts in their blend?

I'm estimating that is could be anywhere from 8 to 12 years, so I was thinking the whiskey I enjoyed (very much:grin:) last night was bottled in the late sixties, or even early seventies.

Any confirmation of what exactly (age-wise) goes into Crown Royal? I'm thinking this could have changed over the years, of course.

Salud,

Lear

[Gillman]

That whisky would have been marketed in 1969. The youngest whisky in CR was (and is) 10 years old, hence the 1959 date, the youngest whisky was distilled in 1959 and it was bottled and sold once it reached the set minimum age for the brand. As the rear label stated then, there was whisky up to 30 years in it. So the oldest whisky was distilled way back in 1939.

Gary