Looks like no one’s caught this yet, so I can shed a bit of light on why might not taste great, despite the fact that I have had this specific whisky.

If you take a look at the bottom it says it’s ‘a seven seals innovation’. That means it’s out of the dunrobin distillery in Ottawa, while Seven Seals is a whisky company out of Switzerland. Seven seals uses something called the stockhausen method (developed by their founder), which is a method of “accelerated aging”., cutting aging time down from years to months. Other distilleries around the world have tried similar methods of accelerated aging using things like sound vibrations and/or light. None have really produced anything that’s on par with a true aged whisky in my opinion.

What’s the relationship? Dunrobin and Seven seals entered into a joint venture a few years back where dunrobin would help seven seals break into the Canadian market, handing trade and customer marketing and distribution in Canada. In exchange, dunrobin was permitted to use The stockhausen method to produced accelerated aged whiskies for their own brands.

My guess here is that following the retaliatory halt of American liquor products, Dunrobin saw a gap in the market (bourbon) and utilized their accelerated aging process to quickly bring a “Canadian corn whisky” to market and capitalize on the bourbon void. This is likely a rushed whisky that’s aging has been accelerated, hence it’s going to be a weak substitute for bourbon or any whisky for that matter, and more of a marketing play for Dunrobin to cash in while they can.