Paradigm Spirits 19yo Canadian Whisky
Heritage Collection 2022 | 45% ABV
Whisky or ready-to-drink cocktail? You decide…
We enthusiasts generally have mixed emotions around awards, especially the pay-to-play type. Dramface is an enthusiast-serving site, with content generated daily by people just like you. People who, for the most part, have regular jobs not related to the spirits industry.
The focus on the drinker's perspective is a core principle that is evident in everything we do at Dramface. It is reflected in our long winded prose, the whiskies we choose to review, or omit, and even our scoring system, which is less industry-serving and specifically designed for enthusiasts.
So it’s no surprise we take little notice of awards that are so clearly positioned to serve the industry. Pay your dues and send them your bottles and you’re pretty much guaranteed to take home some hardware. Nevermind, it’s irrelevant for us. If we want to hear what the drinkers have to say about whisky, we can turn to the OSWAs, for scotch at least. Or better yet, join a club and ask around or taste and judge for yourself.
The Canadian Whisky Awards are one of said pay-to-play experiences, where producers pay a fee and provide at least a 700ml bottle (if 500ml format they require two). Oh, and the submission guidelines state that you provide an estimate of your sales forecast for said entrants. The long list of gold, silver, and bronze medal winners makes one wonder if any entrant goes home empty handed. I count approximately 160 medal winners out of “nearly 200 competing whiskies.” If there are any entrants that did not win a medal, their numbers are very small, and they can’t be named for obvious reasons.
Why am I writing about this then, and giving it airtime on our beloved Dramface, soiling our pure, sweet, innocent whisky-loving hearts with this industry-adjacent marketing poison wrapped up in a butter tart? Well, this year, for 2024, a rather interesting whisky won the Whisky of the Year award, and it piqued my interest.
I have been aware of Paradigm Spirits for a little while now, as the distillery in London (that’s London, Ontario, not London, London) built in an old Corn Flakes factory. The distillery, which also does vodka, gin, and canned cocktails, opened its doors in 2020. While it gets up to speed on the whisky front they are bottling some sourced whisky, the first release was a 19 year old cask strength Canadian corn whisky. This 2022 iteration appears to be from the same lot of 19 year old grain whisky, but this time Paradigm tried their hand in blending, with oloroso sherry added to the mix.
That’s right, interest piqued. Paradigm have taken a well aged corn whisky and made a cocktail by dumping some sherry in. And then it won a whisky award.
Many whisky intelligentsia dislike the legacy Canadian blending rules which allow small amounts of non-whisky spirits or wine to be added during blending (the infamous 1/11 or 9.09% rule) but I think it’s an important part of Canadian whisky heritage, although in my opinion it should be allowed with mandated disclosure on the label. In this instance Paradigm Spirits distillers and blenders inform us of their mischief on the back label with the context “we take the ‘blender’ part of our name seriously.” This being their heritage collection, it seems fitting to take advantage of this heritage.
Unlike with Lot 40 Port Casks where I was left to wonder whether “Dr. Don” had in fact made a rye-port cocktail, here I know I’ll be drinking a corn-sherry cocktail and it helps to set expectations and make the experience better overall.
Review
Paradigm Spirits, 19yo Canadian whisky, Heritage Collection 2022 release, 19yo single grain corn whisky, batch no.3, unfiltered, oloroso, 45% ABV
CAD$119 (£70) available from the distillery
Sometimes I think things get too serious in this hobby, we’re all in it for fun after all right? In that spirit I would like to present some light hearted gripes:
The bottle shape is nice but the labelling is an aesthetic disaster. It’s reminiscent of a recent Dougie red cask co review, where they seemed to put as many words as possible on the bottle without bothering which ones. There are at least eight different fonts and six different label stickers in different colours, with olorosso [sic] misspelt.
The maths don’t add up. A 19 year old whisky “Barrelled in 2000,” part of the 2022 heritage collection, and won the 2024 Canadian whisky award.
The price is a bit yikes. I won’t get into price-based scoring and whatever because for my reviews, personally, the only time price factors into my scoring is the answer to the question “Would I buy this again?”, which is usually the deciding factor between a 5 and a 6 if I’m on the fence.
I couldn’t pull the synthetic cork out on the first try no matter how hard I tried. I cursed in frustration to my wife, took a deep breath and tried again. I applied a large force and the cork released very easily this time causing some recoil and spill over the table. Not a great start, Paradigm.
Nose
Sugar. Icing sugar. Sweet candy corn. Cotton candy and red candy apples. Sticky caramel and hot asphalt. There’s a slightly perceptible oily/nuttiness (pecan?), vanilla bean, golden raisins, and nutmeg dusted eggnog.
Palate
Rubber tires touchdown on red candy tarmac, the landing is smooth. The red candy apple is more of a green caramel apple in the mouth. A nice round and sweet mid palate, with the grip coming on the spicy finish, reasserting itself with black pepper and cayenne.
The Dregs
As mentioned, some think that the 1/11 blending practice is detrimental to the reputation of Canadian whisky. I prefer to take the stance that it’s the lack of transparency that hurts the status. We all know that the prime benefit of filling new make into a fresh sherry cask is the resulting fraction of sherry that ends up mingled in with the whisky. It’s out in the open, we all acknowledge it, and it’s a selling feature, not something that’s hidden from sight. What if only whisky matured in new or refill casks could be called whisky? With a bit of consumer education and an effort at transparency, the PR nightmare that is the 1/11 rule could be turned around.
The Paradigm blend tastes like if I shook it with ice and poured it into a chilled martini glass with a sprig of fresh rosemary you’d think it was expertly made by a mixologist and I could charge $25 plus tax and tip. You’d gladly pay up and maybe ask for another. I can see how it stood out amongst judges in a tasting panel, and I imagine it was a much needed breath of fresh air in a sea of mediocre.
Of course, it’s a 7, the most frequently awarded score on Dramface, and shhh… 7 is the new 5, pass it on. Jokes aside, it’s damn tasty, has an interesting premise, and disappears quickly when shared. There’s quality in the glass and the score is deserved, but if your face hole is tuned for malted barley you’re in for a shock because this is definitely not that.
A great interview with Michelle and Irma of Paradigm Spirits can be viewed here.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. AMc