Unibroue is distilling

[Gillman]

Reports at the recent Spirit of Toronto tasting have Unibroue Brewery of Montreal (now owned by Sleeman Brewery of Ontario) distilling in two stills. One is copper, one stainless. The spirit, I assume from a cereal mash, is being aged in ex-bourbon barrels bought from Heaven Hill. Sounds positive but it will be some years until we see the results.

Barrel Select is the premium version of the whisky put out by Forty Creek Distillery of Grimsby, Ontario. I advise those who have access to try the current bottling since the whisky is better than ever. John Hall, its distiller, told me he is putting ever-older whisky into the blend (made from a combination of an all barley malt whisky, all-rye whisky and all corn whisky). John started distilling whisky in 1992 and clearly is plumbing stocks a decade older and more. I find his current Barrel Select almost like Old Overholt in flavor but actually better due to being softer, better balanced and of course older. I asked John if he would market his rye unblended. He was interested in my questions but seems committed to blending different cereal whiskies, along the lines as he explained of a wine maker blending wines made from different grape types.

Gary

[cowdery]

I also recommend both of the Forty Creek whiskies. They are light, in the Canadian mode, and won't make anyone give up his Stagg, but John Hall is a serious whiskey-maker trying to accomplish something interesting within the Canadian tradition. They are reasonably priced and worth a try.

[Gillman]

Chuck the other thing I found interesting (this again from John Hall at the Spirit of Toronto the other night) is the whiskies are distilled once. That's what he said. I found that interesting because both his products are hardly congeneric. If he distills once in pot stills, one would think they would have an armangac-like distillery character, but they don't. I wonder how he gets the mildness when only distilling one time in a pot still. Even the Scots and the French in Cognac distill twice, not just to increase throughput but to seek a cleaner spirit. All U.S. bourbon makers distill twice too. I meant to circle back to his stand to ask about this but got "delayed" at the other stands.

Gary

[lexkraai]

Some brief tasting notes of an 18 month old experimental cask sample of Unibroue at: http://www.maltmadness.com/mm11.html#11-02

Cheers, Lex