One of the ‘world’s best’ whiskies comes from Canada

Here's something that might be worth pouring a shot of and swishing around in your mouth: Canadian whisky that's made in a distillery on the shores of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. 

Crown Royal’s Northern Harvest Rye is not just any whisky. It’s been chosen as the 2016 World Whisky of the Year in Jim Murray's newest Whiskey Bible, an authoritative guides to the best spirits. It’s no small honor. It’s the first time a Canadian Whisky has been the top pick in the “Whisky Bible”.

Here's what Whisky connoisseur Jim Murray, who tastes over 1,000 new whiskies annually, has to say: “This year, doubtless there will be many more eyebrows raised because rarely is Canada mentioned when it come to the world’s top whiskies. But, again, I have no doubt people finding the bottling I tasted will be blown away with this whisky’s uncompromising and unique beauty. It certainly puts the rye into Canadian rye.”

Murray scores each whisky and he gave Northern Harvest Rye a record-qualifying 97.5 out of 100 points saying “Rye, that most eloquent of grains, not just turning up to charm and enthrall but to also take us through a routine which reaches new heights of beauty and complexity. To say this is a masterpiece is barely doing it justice.”

“I've had a bottle of it since way before Mr. Murray declared it the Worlds Best Whisky,” says Joanne McInnes, who blogs about whisky from New Brunswick as the Whisky Lassie. 

First off, she says it absurd to name a single whisky as the world’s best.

“Every time he picks one whisky as the entire world's best whisky, I mean it's absolutely ridiculous when there are so many different styles,'' she says.

"You cannot compare Canadian whisky to Scotch, you cannot compare bourbon to a French whisky. There are so many different styles out there so how can you say that one whisky from one country is the best in the entire world, and so it causes mayhem!”  

She says that when the top pick is announced, it usually triggers a run on the whisky brand, the price for a bottle of the spirit goes up, stores run out of it or it’s just not available everywhere in the world, and then whisky lovers get frustrated when they can’t find it.

So perhaps you’ll agree that taste for whisky like anything else is subjective. Jim Murray loves Northern Harvest Rye. What does the Whisky Lassie think about the taste of it?

“Ok I’m just going to pour a little bit. The nose is absolutely beautiful, it is probably the creamiest of all the Crown Royals I've ever had…like crème brûlée, that kind of butterscotch, creamy, it just fills your nostrils and makes your mouth water, so from a nosing perspective absolutely fabulous.”

“Now I’m going to take a sip. As you start to swirl it around, it really has a sweetness to it, but not the sweetness that you would've expected on the nose so all the sudden you're sort of hit with like green apples, like a bitter sweet green apple and a little bit of grapefruit pith, almost acidic….and that for me is where it started to kind of fall apart. Like it's a little too peppery, and it finishes just a bit too pithy, like it reminds me of white grapefruit. It's just too citrusy and then when you actually swallow, and I can take another sip here…it's complex but it slowly falls apart.” 

To sum up, McInnes says this Canadian rye whisky starts off with a beautiful aroma in the glass and then it just slowly falls apart to the point where the finish amounts to a  bit of a burning sensation, not so pleasant. She concedes that the Crown Royal is indeed a good whisky, but she wouldn’t mark it nearly as high as the 97.5 it earned in the Whisky Bible.

To further confuse matters about this whisky, consider this anonymous comment on the Whisky Lassie blog, "I wouldn't ruin a can of Coca Cola with Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye. Utterly boring and without merit."  That’s further proof that there's no accounting for taste.

But don’t by any means turn away from Canadian whiskies, says McInnes. Here are a couple of her own recommendations.  One to try is: 40 Creek Confederation Oak, a blended Canadian whisky which sells for around $50 a bottle. She calls it the “epitome of what Canadian whisky is all about,” because it has the distinction of being aged in Canadian oak barrels, and “it’s gorgeous from start to finish.” A second whisky McInnes is super excited about comes from the Stillwater Distillery in Ontario. It’s called Stalk and Barrel, and it’s a 100% rye whisky. Taste it, says McInnes,  and you’ll discover “it’s got teeth. It’s not aggressive, but it is a kick-ass rye, like 100% kick ass rye.”