Still Waters Buck 8 (59.5%)

A couple of weeks ago, I got in the car and drove north of Toronto to deepest Concord, Ontario. My purpose? To visit with the new – well, several years on, now – owner of the Still Waters Distillery, one of Ontario’s and, indeed, Canada’s earliest craft distillers, Lucas Kusiak.

(I was also visiting with the owner of the nearby Last Straw Distillery, Don DiMonte, who is working on a sort of work-sharing collaboration with Kusiak, but that’s a story for another post.)

While both the Still Waters and the new Buck Hill Distilled Spirits Corp. websites are live and kicking, the devil, as they say, is in the details. Look at the Still Waters site and you will notice that it is the “Home of Buck Hill,” whereas a click on the Buck Hill site reveals it to be “Operating as Still Waters Distillery.” At the heart of the dual identity is Kusiak’s ongoing efforts to transition from Still Waters to the Buck Hill brand.

(I shan’t bother explaining the Buck Hill name, since you can click here and read it for yourself.)

Kusiak has taken on a considerable amount of the old Still Waters stock – in fact, he and DiMonte have built a new rickhouse for aging it and other barrels – and is using multiple varieties of barrels to create new and interesting expressions, many of which demonstrate no small amount of cask selection skills on his part.

This, however, is a straight and to the point whisky, no barrel finishes required. Bottled at considerable though not quite cask strength, it is 99% corn and 1% barley malt (for the starch conversion enzymes), aged for eight years in ex-bourbon oak from the Wild Turkey Distillery. This particular bottling is a single cask release, only lightly proofed, as noted.

Bright gold in colour, it has a very full and rich aroma of sweet creamed corn, caramel, charred oak, cooked vanilla, and a touch of butterscotch fudge. On the approach, there is little to suggest its strength and much to imply its appeal.

The palate entry is sweet, unsurprisingly corn forward, with a light gingery spice to it. On the mid-palate, the sweetness turns more towards vanilla and white chocolate, with still a bit of gingerbread spice, some clove-spiced orange, and a light grassy note. On the finish, there is lingering orange zest and ample vanilla, plus some faint creamed corn.

As one might expect of a corn whisky, this is a fairly simple spirit, but simple does not necessarily mean boring. The flavours here are bold and intense, the high strength held very much in check, the character is impressive, and the overall experience is measured, round, and immensely satisfying.

88 ($60 from the distillery)