- It’s true: Canadian Club was first invented and marketed by American distiller Hiram Walker. For various reasons, he moved across the border, and a little later, began to market his famous whisky.
- Maturation — the amount of time alcoholic spirits spend aging — helped Mr. Walker’s sales, and later, sales of the sons who inherited the company. In the mid-to-late 1800s, whisky was commonly aged only a year; maybe two. Walker’s blend was aged for at least five years.
- Canadian Club is now produced under Beam Inc., an American company located in Illinois.
- Before the “Canadian” part came along, the whisky that’s become famous worldwide was just called “Club”. Due in part to a petition from American whisky makers in competition with Walker, the word “Canadian” was added. Rather than have a negative effect, as his competitors had hoped for, the brand took off.
- Canadian whisky is differentiated from Scotch, Irish, and Kentucky whisky.
- The ‘secrets’ of Canadian Club’s success can be found in the four grains used to blend it, that the grains are added before ageing, and that the whisky is matured in once-used, white oak, American bourbon barrels (that alone supposedly adds to its smoothness).
- Canadian Club is currently sold in over 150 countries worldwide.
- No less than Lady Randolph Churchill, while in the posh Manhattan Club in 1872, asked for CC with something a little sweet in it. The Manhattan cocktail was born, 140 years ago, lending early and lasting credence to the uniqueness of the drink we now know simply as “CC”.