Okanagan Spirits BLK BRBN Cask Strength (52%)

(Interested in tasting this and other great Canadian whiskies with me? Then get yourself a ticket to my ‘New Face of Canadian Whisky’ tasting at The Alpine on April 30! Details at The Alpine’s Instagram page and tickets available at the bar or by emailing thealpinetoronto@gmail.com.)

While the label says ‘Canadian Bourbon-Style Whisky,’ this is like nothing you’d ever see in the United States. But before we get to that, let’s talk first about Okanagan Spirits’ basic BRBN.

There is, of course, a distinct absence of bourbons on the Canadian market these days, but that is not the reason Okanagan makes this bourbon-ish British Columbia whisky. In fact, it predates our boycott of bourbon and other American booze by close to a decade, having originally been released back in 2017. And even if they hadn’t been making it for that long, as a whisky aged for five years in virgin oak, the idea for BRBN would have had to come about long before the second term of the orange one south of the border.

By law, proper, official bourbon must be composed of at least 51% corn, with the remaining 49% made up of an assortment of other grains. In practice, however, most bourbons contain considerably more corn than 51%, up to 70-75% or more, with the remaining grist being barley malt, usually at less than 10%, and wheat or rye, occasionally both.

Okanagan’s BRBN, on the other hand, is just 54% corn, with the entirety of the remainder being malted barley, making it less a pure play bourbon style whisky than an interesting hybrid of bourbon and single malt. Then there is that five year aging, which is three more than what is mandated in bourbon production.

Put this all together and you have a BRBN of a distinctly different order. BLK BRBN Cask Strength then takes that approach one step further by employing not merely pale malted barley, as in BRBN, but rather the deeply coloured variety known as chocolate malt, typically used in the brewing of stouts and porters, for the entirely of the 46% barley content, and ages it for seven and a half years rather than five.

The result is an amber-hued whisky that, in its aroma, reminds me a bit of my late mother’s brownies, with chocolate, notes of brown spice, and a caramel drizzle. In a less nostalgic vein, there are also notes of vanilla, raisin, and date, plus hints of orange marmalade.

The flavour begins with a sweet touch of vanilla, caramel, and candied orange, leading into a flavour that is unsurprisingly chocolaty, rich, slightly plummy, with vanilla and caramel notes and hints of cinnamon and nutmeg. The finish dries out nicely, although not completely, leaving flavours of oak, burnt white toast, dried cherries, and, lingering appetizingly on the tongue, spiced cocoa nibs.

There is enough going on in this whisky that the simple ‘bourbon-style’ descriptor fails to do it justice, as it is that but also so much more. It should have been enough that Okanagan effectively invented a new category of whisky with their BRBN; it’s a huge gift to Canadian whisky fans that they took it one step further with BLK BRBN.

93 ($90 from the distillery website)