Bridgeland Single Blend 2023 (43.5%)

For an operation that has barely been around long enough to produce a legal whisky – okay, it’s in year number six, which significantly exceeds the legal minimum of three years of aging for a whisky in Canada, but you get the point – Calgary’s Bridgeland Distillery has certainly been making waves. The Bridgeland Single Blend I review here sports a sticker declaring it ‘Best in Class’ at the 2023 Alberta Beverage Awards, while the same spirit won a silver at the 2024 Canadian Whisky Awards and a gold at the 2024 Canadian Artisan Spirits Competition. Which is not even mentioning all the other accolades the distillery has racked up over its short lifespan.

Seems they must be doing something right!

And, judging by this whisky, unconventionally so. For the Single Blend is a marriage of a bourbon-style whisky made from southern Alberta-grown corn – or as the distillery calls it, Taber Stright Berbon – and the distillery’s Glenbow Single Malt, matured both separately and together in a mix of American, Hungarian, and Bulgarian oak. (Details of the aging are not provided, but as the distillery says that both the Berbon and the Glenbow Whisky are aged exclusively in American oak, it stands to reason that the Hungarian and Bulgarian barrels are reserved for the blended whisky.)

Deep gold in colour, the single malt pops first in on the nose with immediate aromas of fresh peach and toasted oak, backed by notes of vanilla that soon develop into charred and spicy oak, first joining and then supplanting the fruitiness. After a couple of swirls, it all comes together in a mix of steeped vanilla pods, toffee, baked peaches, a hint of lime zest, and a whiff of campfire.

I’m not sure what I was expecting on the palate, but it wasn’t this, although in no way to my disappointment. On entry, the flavour is a bit woody, with notes of citrus zest and dried orchard fruit. This initial introduction soon gives way to a dry toffee palate, smooth and gentle, with notes of vanilla and raisin, hints of canned peaches and tropical fruit cocktail, toasted oak and just a touch of anise. The finish is quite dry, a bit over-oaked, and marked by tight tannins.

Overall, this is a unique blend that speak first to its component parts separately, then to a unified whole that is as suitable to sipping neat as it is mixology. I find the oak to be a bit too pronounced throughout, but that only marginally detracts from the enjoyment of the whisky. A little more experimentation and experience, perhaps, might make this much more than the sum of its parts, as it tends towards now.

79 ($62/500 ml)