Dearests,
One month ago we were hoping by now to share some great news with y'all, like we landed on the moon or something. We're still in the hunt for our LCBO approval. We're starting to sound like a boring broken record here, so that's all we'll say about that. Better news to come, maybe...
On a not-so-unrelated note, an interesting article from The New York Times was sent my way. It focuses on science taking over the whisky aging process. Basically if you pressure cooked spirits and wood together, you can speed up aging exponentially. Hot, cold, in, out etc. Spicy, no? Wood staves are nothing new, but skipping the barrel stage altogether? Pff, c'mon meow. So here's a craft whisky question for ya...is it still craft whisky if it's made bypassing the critical aging process? We know the Canadian government says no, because 3 years aged etc. But it's an interesting discussion.
For us craft distillers, start-up capital and aging are definite profit-inhibiters. So why not take short-cuts? We already said we don't take any short-cuts to flavour country, but nonetheless, it's an interesting debate. Or maybe it's not called whisky at all, and some other kind of spirit altogether? As quoted in the NYT article, if they're not directly competing with traditional whiskies, who cares? Also an important note from said article, unlike traditionally-aged whisky, accelerated aging leaves a little less on the palette after each sip. So we'll leave that for y'all to chew on for now.
Holler!
The Old Sons