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In the News

Spirit Awards for Blind Tasters

At Niagara College in Ontario, students in the country’s first college-level Artisan Distilling program competed late last year to develop the kind of skills coveted by our own Canadian Artisan Spirit Competition. During the first annual Spirit Awards at the Canadian Food & Wine Institute, they competed in a blind-tasting challenge of four-spirit flights each of London dry, Ontario, contemporary, signature botanical and flavoured gins. Students applied sensory evaluation training to choose winners in each category.

Do you conduct blind-tasting and comparative-tasting sessions with your staff? Here are some spirits sensory evaluation tools, from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust, the Society of Wine Educators and a Canadian Whisky Tasting Wheel from Pernod-Ricard WhiskyDoc, Dr. Don Livermore, to help get you started.

Vancouver Island Forges a New Trail

The new Vancouver Island Spirit Path invites tourists and locals into the distilleries that define five regions of the Island, providing maps and routes for each. Tourism Vancouver Island partnered on the slick website, which includes on-point socially responsible imbibing and B.C. Craft information for consumers.

Events + Openings

Events

  • January 15–26: Tribute to Craft Spirits Festival brings together B.C. and Alberta distilleries in Lake Louise and Banff, culminating in a two-day street festival of tasting on the second weekend.

  • February 23: Rig Hand’s Geoff Stewart continues with a series of Distilling 101 workshops, an introduction to mashing, fermenting, distilling and dilution/flavouring in Nisku, Alberta.

  • April 4: BC Distilled in Vancouver. 40 Artisan Distilleries will showcase their spirits at Canada’s largest artisan distillery festival.

  • April 6–8: American Distilling Institute’s 2020 Craft Spirits Conference and Vendor Expo lands in New Orleans.

Openings