It’s literally been years since I tried any Canadian whisky.

It’s been since early spring this year since I had any Canadian whisky. Part of the ‘weird whisky tasting’ I hosted about half a year ago, there was an older bottling of Crown Royal that was supposed to be from the seventies, but wasn’t. It was from the previous distillery, called Waterloo Distillery, so it was quite old.

This one came by in a bottle-share and I found it interesting enough to buy a sample, even though the reviews aren’t very good. Generally, with Whiskybase being really big in Europe, but not so much in America and Asia (yet). This results in American whisky scoring rather low on average. It is getting more accurate with the slowly accumulating votes and ratings, but non-Scottish, non-Indian and non-Japanese whisky has some catching up to do.

Shelter Point distillery is rather young with it only having been established in 2011. They state on their website that they’re using similar methods of crafting their whisky as they do in Scotland. A lot of other information on the website is about the surrounding area of the distillery, and the way they farm the land. There’s not a lot to go by in regards to distillation process.

I guess we have to let the whisky do the talking then!

Sniff:
Bread-like and rather sweet. Brioche, I guess that is. There’s a little bit of funk, like hessian and leather, old bread. A gin-like vegetal note as well. A hint of banana and dried apple in the background.

Sip:
The palate is quite sharp, in a young-ish way. A lot sharper than you would expect from a 46% whisky. It’s very typical of a Scottish style whisky, with hints of oak, barley in a bready way. There’s some fruitiness in the way of dried apples and the sweetness of a ripe banana. This style of sweetness gives away some youth, or at least a young quality.

Swallow:
The finish brings that sweetness again, but it is more like a wine cask now. Still apples and banana. The finish is rather short, with a note of iron remaining.

Very Scottish in style, but its youth is quite different than a ‘normal’ single malt. So there is some difference in style to Scottish single malt, but there are a lot of similarities too.

With me being not the biggest fan of Canadian whisky (understatement), I guess it’s good, in a way, that they don’t go the typical route. On the other hand, this might make them fall between the cracks. It’s not overly interesting for a drinker of Scottish whisky, nor for fans of Canadian whisky.

82/100