Great Plains 18yo Brandy Cask
Canadian Corn Whisky | 54.5% ABV
Score: 6/10
Good stuff.
TL;DR
Silky, smooth, and saucy
I let my emotions get the better of me
I’ll admit, I got quite fired up after reading some of the excerpts in Aengus’ Wiser’s 18yo review.
The content and excerpts from Don Livermore and his Blending 101 book infuriated me more than they should have but some of it just stuck in my craw, a briar in my thoughts that day. Some of my niggles were related to the flippant nature of the comments, but most of my slowly festering ire was coming from the basis for these comments.
A part of that basis is related to the constant use of Livermore’s doctoral prefix. It’s wielded as if it’s an almighty hammer, indicative of undeniable and scientifically sound truth. As it turns out, the real-world Broddy (also a Canadian), very coincidentally, also has a doctorate degree, albeit in engineering rather than brewing and distilling from Heriot-Watt like Livermore. I’ve published more than a dozen peer-reviewed scientific papers and will continue to do so when something new is created by myself or the team around me. So the scientific process, and the basic underpinnings of disclosure, are not foreign concepts to me.
For a minor segue and smidge of backstory, Canadian engineers are also granted the privilege to wear an “iron ring” on the pinky finger of their working hand upon graduation. Many of the rings are grafted from the steel of an infamous bridge that failed due to engineering, providing a tactile reminder of our moral obligations to public safety that’s more stringent than doctors. In my professional life, it’s far more advantageous to fly under the radar with your designations. You won’t catch me wearing my iron ring as it signifies I’m an engineer, instantly alerting others and raising any judgement or bad experiences, especially with trades-people and construction crews.
It’s much easier to blend in than flexing and hitting them with a knowledge bomb when required, going super saiyan and showing your final form only when necessary. It’s a more wholesome and tactically sound approach because as the saying goes, there’s always a bigger fish in the pond. So just when you think you’re the hot shot, someone else can easily show up and make you look like a fool.
It is no secret that Livermore’s reputation reaches the international stage, providing a beacon and fixture for Canadian whisky as a category. So when he states something, it’s very likely the general populace can interpret these tidbits as applying to the Canadian whisky category in its entirety. As with most things, context is everything and propagation of information is seemingly outpacing critical thinking.
I know the dangers of continuing to propagate rhetoric. A flashback to my doctoral studies: I was dealing with a particular modelling error for welding, where my Joule resistance heating model was close to measured reality. However, I was having to use a correction factor, a magic fudge factor, black box relationship or other term you wish to call it. It wasn’t a constant factor and varied with temperature. So when trying to create an accurate temperature model to accurately determine the optimal heating theorem for a new welding process application in a heavy industrial setting, and the fudge factor also depended on temperature, you could see my conundrum.
My dependent variables were dependent on each other, producing a relatively inescapable feedback loop that was only stopped because of a fixed variable of the materials melting temperature, providing a magic convergence because well, all things melt when welding otherwise it wouldn’t be called welding.
So when taking a step back and breaking this multivariable hot mess down into its fundamental components and removing any preconceived notions of how things should be, I found certain material resistance constants that have been used by the welding industry for nearly 70 years were potentially leading me astray. So I designed and built a custom test rig and data acquisition system to test the theory that the thermophysical resistivity changes in welding consumables does not follow the standard properties due to some basic metallurgical theories related to how materials are made.
Lo and behold, I created new material constants unique to welding that solved my issues and eliminated the need for fudge factors, bringing my thermal models to within 5% accuracy, a win in most circles when creating something new.
This data went on to be published and is still in use today. So rather than publishing my thesis and thermal model using some strange fudge factors that would have continued to propagate the use of incorrect fundamentals, I had fixed the rhetoric. I had stopped the propagation of incorrect information, providing quantitative scientific and experimental data for all to see.
I don’t write the above factoids lightly. As I’ve mentioned already, I’m not a flashy person nor do I puff my chest. But in this case I felt the need to provide a tiny peak under Broddy’s proverbial hood since you don’t know the real me and may feel that my critiques of Livermore and his statements are coming from an ill-informed, petty, or shouty perspective to cause a stir. It’s rather the opposite. I’m aiming to provide tempered and balanced thoughts to go along with a review of a particular whisky.
According to his book, the sensory panel at Hiram Walker can’t tell the difference between chill filtered and un-chill-filtered whisky.
“Our philosophy is that we would rather have a clear product, which appeals to the mass of the population, than rather field complaints about haze or flocculation for the sake of the very few people who think they can tell the difference.”
- Dr. Don Livermore, Blending 101
So when grandiose statements on how chill-filtration has no discernable influence on a whisky, I cringed. When things are written and published, especially by someone who possesses a doctoral degree from a well-reputed institution, there’s a modicum of trust in the scientific method and rigour applied to the basis of any statements.
What was not directly stated alongside the chill-filtration comment was the number of variables behind the scenes that would influence this claim. As with most things, there are always many variables at play and it’s never just one thing. First, the Hiram Walker distillery utilises a continuous column still distillation, notorious for producing cleaner and lighter spirits rather than heavier and oilier spirits, indicating a lesser amount of long-chain fatty acids and esters making their way through the condenser and into the new-make.
Second, the Hiram Walker distillery’s new-make spirit is an eye-watering 94.5 %ABV, indicating a very high spirit cut (if it were a pot still) is continuously taken. During distillation, it’s generally true that the higher the cut proof, the less heavier compounds are entrained within the highly miscible ethanol component. For reference, the Scottish grain distillery North British also takes their new make spirit off at 94.5 %ABV.
Third, the vast majority of Canadian whisky and distillates produced from Hiram Walker utilise a very heavy proportion of corn in the resulting vatting. Corn is also notorious for providing a cheap form of sugar from which alcohol is produced from yeast. However modern corn varieties do not produce the same volume of esters and fatty acids. The common theme among these three primary justifications is that every production choice and step of Hiram Walker is purposely geared towards removing heavier compounds from the new-make and matured whisky. These heavier compounds are often longer or larger in physical size meaning any chill filtration would remove them if they were in the whisky in significant quantities to begin with.
So technically it would make sense that Livermore’s sensory panel could not tell any significant difference between chill filtered or non-chill filtered whiskies. But if these additional details would be provided for discussion and interpretation by the reader, we could better understand such matter-of-fact style statements. In fact, many technical reports would specifically cover this information following such factual statements, usually in the “discussion” section of a report. This provides additional justification and informs the reader that you, as the author, know what you’re talking about and can provide the point/counterpoint justifications to back up your results.
Rant over. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Review
Great Plains Craft Spirits 18yo, Canadian Corn Whisky, Distilled by Potter’s Distillery (closed), 54.5% ABV
CAD$110 (£66) paid.
There are many independent bottlers and many have chosen to bottle Scotch whiskies even though they are physically located in other parts of the world. You can buy casks, blend/vat them together based on samples, and bottle them in Scotland from the comfort of your outside-of-Scotland home.
Great Plains, based in Alberta, Canada, chose to go a different route. Rather than sourcing from Scotland and paying a premium, they source their whiskies from their own backyard at a cheaper price, with the majority (so-far) coming from Highwood Distillers Ltd.
Highwood Distillers have been producing whiskies for nearly 50 years, primarily focussing on wheat and rye grains. If you’ve a keen eye, this whisky came from Potter Distilling company and is made from corn. Well Highwood purchased Potter’s sometime in the 1990s, closing its doors in 2006 and shifting the stocks back to Highwood. Potter’s worked with a wider variety of grains, including corn. So when Great Plains came along looking for some well-aged barrels, several casks from the now defunct Potter’s Distillery jumped out. Great Plains currently has two other corn whiskies, a 22 year old and 37 year old, from Potter’s slumbering away in cognac and armagnac barrels, awaiting release sometime here in 2023.
So what about this 18 year old release? It rested in ex-bourbon barrels for 17 years before being transferred to brandy casks from Bodegas Osborne in Jerez, Spain and finished it for more than 12 months. Apparently they experienced some delays in the labelling that extended the finishing time a few extra months. The back label states this whisky is a pure corn mash, while Great Plains’ website states a 91.5% corn and 8.5% rye mash bill. Now I don’t know the exact definition of “pure” when it comes to mash bill but the vast majority of people would assume it would mean it to be 100% corn. Regardless of the discrepancy, it’s a very high corn ratio.
Let’s dive into this Canadian corn whisky from a new independent bottler doing things differently.
Nose
Butterscotch pudding. Dash of baking spices. Boozy sugary vanilla sauce. Wheat dust. Trace of indistinct white flesh fruit.
The nose is sweet, smooth, and inviting - everything you would expect from a well-aged whisky. The 100% corn mash bill makes this whisky seem very similar to a 20+ yo single grain whisky aged in refill bourbon barrels if you’ve ever had a dram from one of the few Scottish grain distilleries, especially North British that primarily uses corn as their base grain component.
Palate
Caramel/butterscotch sauce, cotton candy, toffee, cinnamon sticks, high-quality vanilla, cooked red apples reduced with white sugar, and carried by an ultra-creamy mouthfeel. It’s so creamy that it borders on lightly oily. Behind these dominant notes, a slight raw walnut bitterness, dash of white pepper, a very light clean leather note, and a touch of wood tannins pulling at your cheeks are found. When you roll it around your mouth, it provides a very pleasant mild warming sensation not unlike cuddling up beside the fireplace with your favourite warm beverage. Very delicate and a lovely experience.
The finish is medium-long, with a slight nuttiness and dried raisin/cranberry notes riding along the vanilla and cinnamon tingle.
The palate is ultra smooth and lacks the jagged biting edges that can sometimes be found in Scottish grain whiskies. It’s delectable and more-ish. Every time I pour a glass, I need to consciously stop myself from pouring a second and third dram.
The Dregs
I feel my lengthy tirade has perhaps consumed your attention span at this point so I’ll keep this brief. I’m excited to see new independent bottlers entering the arena and doing things differently. I enjoyed this whisky, especially for its age vs price ratio, and I’ll be looking forward to future releases from Great Plains. It’s awesome to see a new indie doing something new and sticking to their roots, rather than going the popular route of sourcing from Scotland. #supportlocal
Score: 6/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. BB
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