A tiny bit of background: The Scotch Whisky Association tried to prevent the Glenora Distillers from releasing their whisky because they felt the word "Glen" would confuse people into thinking this Canadian Whisky was actually scotch. It took 9 years of legal battles but then finally after it escalated up to the Supreme Court of Canada, they dismissed the application of the Scotch Whisky Association for leave to appeal in its unsuccessful campaign to oppose the trade-mark registration of Glen Breton. It seems to us that the Scotch Whisky Association were just kind of being dicks about this.
But basically Glen Breton is scotch... or at least, it's scotch styled Canadian whisky. The Glenora Distillery, located in Glenville, NS and located near the Glenora falls, never even try to call themselves 'scotch style' and say Canadian Whisky on their labels next to the maple leaf, not a thistle. However, it is made the same way scotch is made and if it was made in Scotland it would be scotch, but it's made in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, so everyone has to refer to it as Canadian single Malt Whisky. The Glenora Distillery is the first distillery in North America to distill their whisky this way. Maybe The Scotch Association was worried that it would be a slippery slope and sooner or later there would be a great number of competing single malts out there.
As a scotch and single malt drinker... how could this be a bad thing?
It comes in at 43% and it's fairly expensive: $110.00. Apparently you can only buy it from the distillery itself. We made a trip there and so that's how we have it. The trip to the distillery was great, so maybe we'll go again and get some more. It isn't chill filtered and it doesn't have anything, like colouring, added. Nice and pure.
Glen Breton whiskys all have a a very malty aspect to them. You can really smell that very same malt when you take the tour. It's everywhere. So it's not surprising that the nose of this one begins with malt and a tinge of oak or maybe just straight up woodiness. There's vanilla from the bourbon cask (During the tour they mentioned they use virgin Bourbon casks, most likely from Buffalo Trace). Apples and Pear smells are strong and delicious. The warehouses in which the casks are stored are surrounded by apple groves and as the casks breath they're sure to absorb some of these rich fruity smells. A light sweetness with aspects of caramel make their first appearance in the nose and will follow through later on. Then hiding in the background there's a hint of chocolate (there's more chocolate when you smell it straight than when you add some water, but the chocolate also comes back in the pallet, so adding some water is still a good idea).
The taste brings on very malty and fruity flavours, mixed with hazelnut. Once you have your first sip, you can smell more hazelnut in the nose as well. The chocolate comes back on the tongue.
The finish comes on quick. It's a smooth big creamy finish with more hints of vanilla and buttery toffee. The buttery feeling really takes over and almost coats your mouth in its flavours. There's a very light lingering oak that finishes it off. There was some dispute about this slight oaky finish. One of us thought it was sort of a nutty oak, while the other said that oak is wood and can't be nutty. The dispute remains.
Overall this is really nice whisky. Will we get it again? I think we started making plans to visit the Distillery again before we had even left.
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