Alberta Premium Cask Strength 10 year old (67%)

While this latest special release from Alberta Distillers has been available out west for a while now, I was waiting until the LCBO finally pulled out their finger and got it on to Ontario store shelves before I posted my review. Why is that, you ask, thinking me a typically Toronto-centric central Canadian?

The answer is that it is a sufficiently impressive and, I believe, important release that it deserves the attention of as many potential readers as possible.

This is Alberta’s first ever age statement cask strength release, I am told, and even at its impressively elevated alcohol content, it has a whole lot to offer. If Canadian distillers from Alberta to Sons of Vancouver to Cirka, J.P. Wiser’s, Stillhead and many more have been recently redefining the meaning of 100% rye whisky—as I have recently been telling anyone who will listen and will soon be writing about in the pages of Whisky Advocate—then this is as good an illustration of it as any.  

Rich gold in colour, the aroma is rather remarkable and impressively complex, although not fiercely expressive of its rye grain content, with notes of candied walnut, a hint of mocha, notes of lemon and orange zest, oaky vanilla, and a whiff of black pepper and baking spice. The palate entry is sweet and peppery, with rounded vanilla and caramel notes leading to an intense and chocolaty mid-palate with undertones of toffee and vanilla bean, rye’s trademark peppery spice, and a finish of dry vanilla and strong coffee, with lingering notes of charred oak and black pepper.

Chilled and slightly diluted, the rye paradoxically becomes more prominent in the aroma, creating something akin to peppery caramel with espresso bean and smoke in the background. On the palate, the sharper edges are understandably smoothed, but at the expense of some of the whisky’s complexity, with the chocolate muted, the caramel softer, and pepper, oak, and coffee certainly more apparent. The finish offers more oak than pepper at first, but eases into a lengthy and lasting mix of black pepper and baking spice.

For a whisky of its strength, this is a highly elegant pour and deserves to be sampled neat before the addition of a splash of water or a single ice cube. At $75 (in Ontario) and even less at some western outlets, this is a bargain that’s not to be missed!

89 ($66- $76) VALUE PICK