Family-owned Domaine Pinnacle uses rye, malted barley, and corn spirits to create a lovely, if typical, Canadian blended whisky. Their 430-acre farm, just a stone’s throw from the Vermont border in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, produces award-winning apple cider too. Prune juice, raspberries, toffee, hints of coffee; lush, mild vegetal notes on the nose. Peppery, sweet, creamy, and somewhat simple. Lovely burn. Traditional Canadian whisky with a bite. (Canada only) C$35

Reviewed by: Davin de Kergommeaux (Summer 2016)

Used cooperage and higher corn content make corn whiskey its own category, and Mellow Corn is its leader. As expected, corn dominates throughout as salty chip, tortilla, and my favorite, a thick corn pudding. Burnt brown sugar, vanilla, and black pepper spice tingle the senses, too. This is a sipper if you really like corn, but you can’t drink this and think bourbon.

Reviewed by: Fred Minnick (Summer 2016)

Squished rosehip, nuttiness, and seasoned wood, but there is little else of note on this one. The palate has corn sweetness, red fruits, pomegranate, cherry lips, and descends into soor ploom territory with more oak wood. The finish continues the woody theme with a residual baked apple note.  Port Dundas can be wonderful to drink, but with no shortage of good to great grain whisky on the market, I feel this one is past its best. (258 bottles) £90

Reviewed by: Jonny McCormick (Summer 2016)

This literally tastes like pan-fried mushrooms and roots. It’s earthy; you don’t really expect such intensity from a flavored whiskey. After earth, hops, chocolate, and root beer, I finally taste the whiskey; a nearly absent sensation toward the end. But I guess that’s the point: if they wanted you to taste whiskey, they wouldn’t flavor it. Still, there are no chemically-imbalanced flavors here. This is worth trying, even for us curmudgeon purists.

Reviewed by: Fred Minnick (Summer 2016)

A quadruple-distilled whisky in a glass-stoppered bottle, the sherry influence has left its mark on the nose with ripe Victoria plums, glacé cherry, ripening strawberries, icing sugar, and mixed peel. Too bad the flavors are profoundly bitter and minty, producing an expression on this reviewer’s face like a flinching child reluctantly ingesting an unwelcome spoonful of medicine. More palatable and fruity as it dilutes, some spearmint returns on the finish, but it was game over by then.

Reviewed by: Jonny McCormick (Summer 2016)

The wine cask anoints a gentle amber hue to this natural-colored whisky that has a nose redolent of wine gums. It has a firm texture with early promises of apple and blackberry, but then the flavors tumble off a cliff; a mouth-puckering bedlam of unsweetened rhubarb, cough medicine, licorice, and aniseed. A dash of water extinguishes many of the sour notes, but any redeeming qualities are weakened too, leaving it bland and saggy. Hard to love this one.

Reviewed by: Jonny McCormick (Summer 2016)