JP Wiser’s 18 year old

Malt Mileage Rating: 

Type: Canadian whisky

Origin: Canada 

ABV: 40%

The nose on this whisky is as balanced and integrated as they come, and offers luscious toffee, nougat, milk chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg, wood chips, pine wood and wood vanillas, and peppery heat from the rye.

On the palate, the taste of crystalline sugars form flavours that would rival the world’s finest aged rums; the taste of sugars, caramel, molasses and orange peel form on the palate, and it almost reminds me of a bourbon Old Fashioned. The curious marriage of bourbony and aged rummy notes continues, with dusty ground cocoa, sweet coffee confectionery, green and red jelly beans, and luscious vanillas that taste of Irish or Viennese coffee with mint. Then, the palate dries softly as heavier wood flavours and spices develop – find cinnamon, pepper, peppermint, black tea (wood tannin) and the bitter-sweet taste of honeyed sesame crisps. The rye in the mash adds the peppery heat for which Canadian whisky is famous, and the oak infuses the whisky with more flavours and sugars than you can poke a stick at. 

The finish is full of tingling spices, buttery vanillas, fading caramels, spicy wood tobacco, and sugars from toasted oak.  

Overall, JP Wisers 18 year old is an elegant, well rounded and warming whisky with prickling peppery spices and dense layers of oak driven flavours and vanillins which, having been infused into the whisky from 18 years of aging, sit over the rye and grain that sit at its foundation. At its price, this whisky is easily a must buy!