COLOUR: Dark gold. LEGS: Pretty quick and medium thickness; fairly oily-looking. NOSE: Moderate (3/5); moderately sweet; rye spice; vanilla, toffee & honey; sour green apples; citrus; black pepper; licorice; herbal & oaky. Pretty nice and pleasant; with the occasional waft of deliciousness. WITH WATER (3 drops into 10mL): an increase in well-balanced deliciousness. Score 7/10 TASTE: Fairly simple and straight-forward; light (2/5) & thin; heavy rye & then some corn sweetness; vanilla, butterscotch, honey & maple syrup; tropical fruits; black pepper; licorice & slight saltiness. Quite nice; predominantly sweet with a rye bite, and some interesting flavours emerging with patience. WITH WATER: washed out, and perhaps a bit sweeter. Score 7/10 FINISH: Very brief; sweet and spicy. WITH WATER: sweeter and slightly longer. Score 4/10 OVERALL: Quite pleasant and well-rounded blended Canadian; not too dominant on the rye, which is sweetened up and smoothed out by the corn; not a bad thing to have on your shelf for some mindless sipping, especially at the rock-bottom price. Initial Impression (2022-04-03): nose is rather pleasant and sweet, reminiscent of the corn sweetness of Potter's and Signal Hill; taste is similarly sweet, with a kick of spicy rye, and a bit of bitter oak on the sides of the tongue; finish is short and sweet and spicy. Weighted Score 6.7/10 *NOTE: came in a huge 1.75L bottle.
About this bottle
Alberta Distillers buys grain as a commodity so the actual grain content of some of their whiskies can change from batch to batch. Consistent flavor, though is maintained through careful selection of the mature whiskies that go into each batch. So, this could be 100% rye, but it also might not be. Regardless, in its ten years in the barrels it has picked up a lot of crisp clean wood to become the top of the Alberta Distillers line and their only regular product bearing an age statement.
How it tastes
Measured across 14 flavor axes. Tap a note to find other bottles that lead with it.
Reviews
Showing the most detailed of 9 parsed reviews.
For $18 or $19 Canadian (which it is, ever so occasionally, on sale for in Alberta, Canada), it's a steal. But in no sense would I classify it a *great* whisky. It's made by Alberta Distillers, which means there's that family link to Whistlepig or Jefferson's Rye or Lock, Stock, and Barrel. But it's worth pointing out that those companies are sourcing the really cherry barrels of flavouring whisky from Alberta Distillers (which in part explains the price of those brands), whereas something like Alberta Springs is, typically of all Canadian whiskies, a mix of flavouring whisky and "base" whisky (the latter being distilled to a higher proof so that the flavour of the grain is removed and the barrel flavours can take over). Still, for what it is, it's hard to complain. Flavours of dusty rye, rye bread, menthol, caramel, vanilla, butterscotch, herbal, cinnamon, black licorice, green apple. Pickle juice. Sweet. Terry's chocolate orange. Wood sap and baking spices.
For a bottom shelf Canadian blend, I was pleasantly surprised. It's light and friendly with caramel sweetness up front, and subtle black pepper following behind. Nothing wrong with that, especially for the price.
Sweet nose and taste, with well balanced spicy notes. Banana, lemon and tropical fruit flavours along with rye spice. Short finish is biggest shortfall.
Light, sweet, and fruity, with rye spices coming in after. Nice flavors, I'd like it more if it had some more punch behind it.
It is so smooth and mild tasting that there is very little flavour. Nothing that I would buy or drink again
3 more reviews were collected for this bottle. The longest ones are shown first.
Tastes like this
Closest flavor profiles across the whole catalog.
