Everything You Need to Know About the 2024 Fall BCL Spirits Release

Oh boy, here we go. I honestly don’t know how long we’ve been doing these reviews of the BCL’s Spirits Releases (77, 78 years?) but I know it’s a far sight longer than anyone else. And the times, they have a changed. Prices for brown spirits: up. Bourbon continues to go loco. Scotch keeps running up that hill and Ireland continues to elbow its way into this lucrative game. Canada… well, we still keep it pretty real but in large part because we can’t interest the rest of the world in our whiskey, and so it remains one of the great buys.

But not is all doom and gloom: if you have a capable pilot (me) who happens to be a skinflint (allegedly), the deals can still be had. And we still get an impressive line-up of spirits to dig into.

So are we ready? Here’s what you need to know for the November 16 release.

 

 

The Give Yer Head a Shake, Lad!

There used to be an established path to becoming an elite whisky maker: you could have an illustrious history of centuries of distilling (see, The Macallan) or you could a upstart who brought something new to the game (like the resurrected Port Charlotte). But there now seems to be a third path people are trying—being neither of the above but pricing your whisky high anyway, sort of a Celtic fake it to you make it. There’s quite of a few of these on the release but I’ll choose—GlenAllichie 11 Year Old Ruby Pipe ($200)—a relatively low-age statement from a distillery that’s been only been making whisky for less than a decade and hasn’t done much in that time to impress anyone. The whisky is still young and maybe in the coming years they’ll make something amazing (their master distiller, Billy Walker, is supremely talented) but they’ve gone ahead and priced this 11-year-old spirit at more than double what a legend like Laphroaig 10 goes for. Hard. Pass.

 

The New Distilleries Don’t Get To Charge More Than Their 200-year Old Brethren. Pt 2

We’re looking at you Ardnahoe ($150, the name sounds AI generated), Lagg ($120, cool bottle), Isle of Harris ($160) and Isle of Rasaay ($115) . I’m rooting for all of you peeps, but these prices and not an age statement among the lot of you? Not to go all Walter Sobchack, but am I the only one who gives a s**t about the rules?

 

But We Love a Family Affair

That being said, I do understand people’s desire to support the family operation in an industry that’s dominated by huge players. But do so wisely: I almost always source a Glenfarclas bottle at each release because the owned-by-the-same-family-since-1865-distillery satisfies both my love of the independent and my love of a fair shake. And all those things come together in the Glenfarclas 105 Cask 16 Years ($246). The “normal” 105 is an eight-to-10 year old bargain of power and balance, but this one ups the age significantly which mutes the wallop of the ABV in the best way. It’s less of a bargain of course, but it’s priced fairly.

Inflation? What Inflation?

Let’s park for the time being the Dr. Bill Lumsden of Glenmorangie is currently the most respected person in the whisky world. And that his industry-leading experiments in terroir centre around this dram—The Glenmorangie Cadboll Estate 15— where the wheat comes right around Glenmorangie House in Tain. And that $135 for any 15-year-old whisky is a smoking deal. Instead, let’s just focus on this fact: when the first Cadboll Estate 15 came to the BCLS release in 2021, it was $140. Name me any other consumable that can claim to have decreased in price over the last four years. What a gift this is from this distillery.

Can We Cut Through the BS for One Darn Second?

All of the whisk(e)y world has developed a limited-edition complex in part to help satisfy spirits like this. The reality is that for most whiskies, their base expression—the one that they put the lion’s share of their time and effort into it— is better than the one they throw in a used port cask and charge more money for. And for me this goes doubly so for bourbon, whose meteoric rise continues and whose distillers—raised in the no-BS landscape of Kentucky—continue to do best when they don’t monkey around too much or don’t keep their spirit too long in wood. So I’m going with Eagle Rare ($70), which is now only available in B.C. at this release: it’s a damn-near perfect bourbon. Balanced, classy, great on its own, killer in an Old Fashioned. And for me, seeing it on someone’s back bar is the hallmark of a person who ain’t interested in fancy as so much as just damn good.

The Holy Hell Diageo, There’s Nothing Special About Your “Special Releases”

This feels like the fifth year in a row that I’ve bemoaned Diageo—the maker’s of some of the greatest whiskies in the world included my beloved Lagavulin—for releasing these truly head scratching offering that in no way fit into the description special. And dear reader, please know that it’s not without consequences: I don’t get invited to any Diageo tastings, and never have a chance to sample their whiskies save for trucking down to 39^th and Cambie and plunking down $166 for their still legendary 16 year old (by which I mean, buy at Costco in Alberta and sneak back here, but you get the drift.) So please know my “review” of these whiskies is simply from their marketing and pricing angle as I haven’t tasted any of them. But let me just tell you about their Lagavulin as an example: as mentioned, their iconic 16 sells for $166. This “special” 12 sells for $225. Who would buy such a thing you ask? No one in B.C. seems to have the answer. Click here and you’ll see the BCL is still trying to move the 2023 (it’s even on sale) and 2022 version of this “special” bottling. To quote everyone’s fave senile senior: what malarkey.

 

The Absolute Sweet Spot Between Splurge and Value

There are no shortage of headline-grabbing, insanely-priced bottles at the release. The Macallan, I kid you not, has bottles priced at $140,000, $138,000, $134,000, $84,500 and $50,000. It does make you wonder who has $134,000 to spend on a single bottle but not the extra $6K for the $140,000? Or to put it another way, who pays $134,000 for a bottle everyone will (rightly) call the third most expensive? Well, not me. But there are things that keep the heart (and palate) a-fluttering without requiring bank loans, like the wonderful Bowmore 15 Sherry Cask for $149. I have so much time for Bowmore—they’ve always played it so even-keel for an Islay malt and I think the addition of sherry-cask finish is really interesting. Everything about this bottle is just so enticing, I just love it (and there’s a 12-year for $89 if you’re feeling the pinch).

 

A Deal From a Behemoth?

I don’t frequently get all jacked up by The Glenfiddich, as they’re generally happy to stay in their lane making one of the most widely drunk whiskies in the world. But they’re been playing around with some tomfoolery the last few years (I mean that in a good way) with thing like IPA casks and I like seeing them let loose a bit. This year’s experiment looks particularly fun. It’s Glenfiddich Orchard Experimental Series #5 ($90), and you guessed it, they’re leaning into all things apple by maturing in apple brandy casks and the result is light and crunchy and fun. It seems like it would be great for cocktails and at $90, it’s priced reasonably enough that you can play around a bit. Good looking label, too.

Japan Still Knows No Bounds

There is seriously strong contingent of Japanese whiskies: all the big names and at seriously a high tariff. I still don’t get the Japanese whisky prices, but they are what they are and these bottles are very tough to get your hands on. Is the spirit inside Nikka Yoichi 10 worth $196? That’s up to you but know that this is a bottle that typifies what the release should really be about: coveted by whisky nerds. Tough to source and bound to impress whisky fans when it sits on your mantle.

 

How About a Little Self Love?

For the past few years, I’ve been a judge for the Canadian Artisan Spirits Awards, which consists of drinking literally thousands of little unlabelled bottles and weighing in on the contents. And the dominant theme throughout that time by a mile: Canadian craft whisky has become the real deal. As Exhibit A to my treatise, I present the rarely available Macaloney Island Kildara ($105) from Vancouver Island, one of the pillars (along with their northern neighbour Shelter Point) of the country’s whisky revolution. This is a solid holiday malt: some baking spice, some oatmeal and a bit of burnt orange. Buying local used to mean you sacrificed something to be a booster, but not anymore.