But for Jason Wilson at the Washington Post—who counts his own mother as a fan of Canadian whisky in this week’s column, “Canadian whisky: It’s called ‘Brown Vodka’ for a reason”—the charm of this amber spirit from the north has more to do with nostalgia than with quality. Getting right to the point, Wilson states: “Most Canadian whisky (which like Scotch is spelled without the “e”) is just awful.”
I can usually find something worth defending in most spirits, even vodka, but on this point I have to agree with Wilson. With a few exceptions, Canadian whisky tends to occupy the lower strata of the whisky world, and the manufacturers have only themselves to blame. Whiskies such as bourbon, rye and scotch are produced and labeled under clear sets of guidelines, so the consumer knows that a bottle marked “straight bourbon” or “single-malt scotch whisky” is exactly that, without additives or flavorings.
