3yo Canadian Rye & PX Single Malt | 43% ABV

Score: 5/10

**Average. In a good way.**
***TL;DR***
*A decent rye/barley mélange, but lacks grip*

A tour of the budding distillery scene in part of Québec

It’s 6am on a warm summer morning and we toss our bags into the car and hit the road, heading straight into the sun as it rises. It’s time for summer vacation and I feel like I haven’t fully unplugged in a long, long time. Montréal is a long-haul 550 km east and we’re there in time for lunch with a friend before continuing another 250 km to our first night stopover in Québec City - the launchpad for our adventure.

We’re headed for a week-long road trip around the Gaspé peninsula, a slice of “la belle province” separated from the rest of Québec by the St. Lawrence River to the north, or simply “Le Fleuve” for the locals. See, the fleuve isn’t your regular river. It starts out pretty average as it exits the Great Lakes, but east of Québec City it rapidly widens, fresh water quickly turning salty, and effectively becomes a sea although still technically a river. There isn’t a word in English that’s able to adequately encapsulate this so the Fleuve it is. Le Fleuve Saint-Laurent.

Naturally, I’ve packed a travel bottle for the trip: a recently acquired North Star 15 year old Glen Elgin, but this was planned to be more of a backup as visiting the local distilleries is one of our four core priorities - the others being hiking, beer, and lighthouses.

First stop east of Québec City is Grosse-Île, which was used as a quarantine island for immigrants arriving by boat to Canada from 1832 to 1937. Seeing the disinfection chambers and showers carries new weight these days. In 1847, during the great hunger, 100,000 Irish immigrants landed at this facility, where business as usual was only 10,000 per year. Over 17,000 of those lost their lives to various diseases, mostly typhus from poor sanitary conditions. The island’s Irish memorial commemorates the largest Irish burial ground outside of Ireland for famine refugees.

The backup Scotch had taken a bit of a hit by the time we reached our first distillery, O’Dwyer, which is all the way out in the town of Gaspé at the eastern tip of the peninsula. Here we learn about Québec’s newly designated spirit, Acerum. Acerum is a portmanteau of “Acer '' the Latin for maple, and “rum” meaning rum. This rum made from maple sap is a new designation that now strictly belongs to Québec. To meet the designation requirements, Acerum must be distilled in the province of Québec, from maple sap or syrup from Québec maple trees.

We also had the opportunity to taste some of O’Dwyer’s single malt spirit, at one year of age. Most of the distilleries in Gaspésie are small and fairly new passion projects. This means there’s a lot of gin and not much mature whisky, but all signs are encouraging as many like O’Dwyer are producing whisky spirit for ageing.

In the coming days our distillery tour continued. Down the road in Percé, La Société Secrète distils gin and other spirits in an old church - very edgy for strongly Catholic Québec. The party was raging there with free flowing cocktails at the bar. Along the southern coast, Distillerie des Marigots captured my interest with their beautiful Cognac alembic still. Their gin was perhaps the most memorable of the trip and with the first of the new make currently resting in oak, I’m most eager to try their whisky when it’s ready.

Last but certainly not least on our trip is Distillerie du St. Laurent, one of the pioneers leading the Acerum charge, but that’s not why I’m here. This is the first distillery we’ve visited that has, in bottle, spirit that can legally be called whisky.

“If there’s one takeaway from my summer vacation it’s that the Québec micro distillery scene is alive and thriving”

— Aengus McCloud

Review

Distillerie du St. Laurent Rye, 43% ABV
CND$55 readily available in Québec

Distillerie du St. Laurent is located on the shores of the salty river-sea near Rimouski. We approach the coast from inland and the air temperature drops by almost 10 degrees Celsius as the salty breeze washes away the summer heat. The distillery has just finished building a new unheated warehouse that features walls made from small rocks enclosed in cages to allow the casks inside to breathe that Fleuve air all year long. The employee leading our tasting tells us that in the winter, blowing snow finds its way inside.

This is Canadian rye whisky made from a mixed mashbill of 80% rye and 20% malted barley, double distilled in a copper pot still, and aged for three years alongside the Fleuve in a mix of virgin American oak and refill barrels. The bottle I brought home is from Lot No. 001.

Nose

Apple initially with a pleasant level of isopropyl alcohol. A certain staleness dissipates after a month or so in the open bottle. Very fresh smelling; ginger, apricot, caramel. This is a springtime whisky but still carries some warmer notes like mulled wine, dark fruit, and pumpernickel bread.

Palate

A bit of plastic, Play-Doh, rubber, spent bubblegum. The rye flavours are subdued and appear as chilli pepper, cinnamon hearts, and bright red maraschino cherries. Mint emerges with time in the glass. A little watery on the palate which leads one to crave a higher ABV.

Score: 5/10 AMc

Review

Distillerie du St. Laurent PX Finished Single Malt, 47% ABV
CND$75 available in the distillery shop only

Next is one to satisfy the malt heads, as Dramface is primarily a barley malt whisky site after all. This single malt is release number three in St. Laurent’s exploration series. A single malt whisky of unknown age (most likely between three and five years). As stated on the label it was finished in PX sherry casks for four months and represents a “marriage of malt from the lower St. Lawrence and the sunlight of Spain”.

Score: 4/10

**Some Promise.**
***TL;DR***
*Flavoursome but faulty*

Nose

Heavy Plasticine, bran muffin with raisins, molasses, fruit leather, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon

Palate

More Plasticine, this is a winter dram compared to the spring-like rye. Christmas cake with rum sauce and dark spices. There’s a nice arrival and transition to mid tongue with candied fennel. Round and juicy finish with sweet raisins.

Score: 4/10 AMc

The Dregs

The rye is a decent whisky, and I appreciate the 20% barley malt mashbill, which seems to round off those pointy rye corners nicely. You can see a bit of transference of character from the single malt. I would like to see this a few years older with ABV in the low 50s, but as presented it sits firmly in the average bucket.

The single malt seems to highlight a certain distillery character also present in the rye, although here it manifests as an off-note. The extra ABV and quality PX finish are appreciated and flavoursome but I can’t get past the strong plasticine both on the nose and palate.

If there’s one takeaway from my summer vacation it’s that the Québec micro distillery scene is alive and thriving. For the most part things are just getting going via the usual gin route while laying down whisky, and there is the new Acerum category which I genuinely hope turns into something we can celebrate as Canadians. I’ll have to come back in a few years to check on things.

Tried these? Share your thoughts in the comments below. AMc

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