It’s International Whisky Day! Forty Creek’s Master Blender Bill Ashburn Shares Secrets to Making Great Canadian Whisky

TORONTO, March 27, 2023 – Bill Ashburn has the job of a lifetime. As the Master Blender at Forty Creek, he’s the person who blends the whisky and invents new flavours such as Forty Creek Copper Bold, Honey Spiced, Confederation Oak, Nanaimo Bar Cream Liqueur and others. To celebrate International Whisky Day on March 27, we spoke to Bill to ask him some secrets behind making great Canadian whisky. (Trivia tip: Whisky is spelled without an “e” in Canada, Scotland and Japan. Any country that doesn’t have an “e” in its name doesn’t have an “e” in its whisky. Countries that do have an “e”, such as the United States and Ireland, spell whiskey with an “e”!)

“It’s the pleasure of making whisky and being able to push the boundaries and trying to do things differently – that’s what I love the most,” says Bill. “The team here are so passionate about what they do, and it shows.”

Canadian Master Blender of the Year in 2020

Bill’s passion and pursuit for creating unique whisky blends earned him the title of Canadian Master Blender of the Year in 2020 and helped earn Forty Creek the title of Whisky Maker of the Decade! “It was quite gratifying to have won the awards,” he says. “It’s changed a lot for me as I’m very much internal focused, very much concentrated on developing new liquids to introduce to the marketplace. Amongst my peers, to be recognized is quite different for me, as I’m usually behind the scenes developing and mixing products.”

Bill has a background in chemical engineering technology. He started out in the Canadian wine industry and worked in the industry for several years before the move to making whisky. He joined the distillery in Grimsby in 1992.

“It was time for a change of pace and a change of direction, as I really wanted to explore the spirit distillery side of the business,” adds Bill. The original distillery became Forty Creek, Canada’s first craft distillery. Founder John Hall and Bill Ashburn changed the face of Canadian whisky in 2000 when they introduced Barrel Select, a smooth, approachable whisky that’s a blend of grain whiskies aged in a combination of seasoned ex-Bourbon barrels and new American white oak barrels. “Our most popular to this day is still our Barrel Select, and to this day it’s our most awarded whisky,” he says.

30 to 40 Whisky Samples Per Day!

Bill says he tastes about 30 to 50 whisky samples each day! “What we do when we are production tasting – we are sampling all the different lots, and we don’t swallow. People ask me how I can stand up at the end of the day, but when tasting whisky professionally, we taste it and spit it out.”

How To Taste A Whisky

Asked if there’s a protocol or technique to tasting whisky (as there is with wine tasting) Bill answers: “Yes! Wine, you swirl to release the vapours and the aromas. At a whisky tasting, you do not swirl. You sniff it and want to see what’s coming off the liquid. For whisky, you don’t swirl when you nose it. You nose it and sip it.”

What Makes It A Canadian Whisky?

Bill talks about what makes Canadian whisky unique: “It’s our regulations. They are fairly strict in some ways, but in other ways they allow for experimentation. Most of the other whisky areas in the world are very strict. The United States, for example, which is known primarily for bourbon, has very distinct rigid rules for bourbon. Scotland also has rigid rules. When you are restricted, as you are in the U.S. to the rule that it must be 51% corn and it must be aged in new American charred oak barrels, your opportunities to create distinctive styles are pretty limited.”

Canadian Whisky (or rye, which is a pseudonym for Canadian whisky) experienced a resurgence in the late 1990’s, according to Bill.

“Canadian whisky went through a period of the doldrums as there wasn’t a lot of innovation happening, until the revival. Forty Creek was very much on the forefront of that, starting in the 1990’s into the 2000’s, and just breathed fresh life into the Canadian whisky industry. Canadian whisky has ebbed and flowed over the years. In the late 80’s you would never dream of drinking Canadian whisky without mixing it. That has turned around completely. Many people now enjoy Canadian whisky neat or on the rocks without mixers.”

The reputation of whisky has also changed over time, says Forty Creek’s Master Blender. “Whisky was once thought of as an ‘old man’s drink’ and for awhile, people rebelled against anything their parents did. But whisky has been rediscovered. I relate this to the coffee craze. Some of the flavours and nuances that exist in coffee also exist in whisky—the stronger flavours—and I think as people started to enjoy different varieties of coffee, the flavours of whisky became more familiar to them. Canadian whisky and coffee are very earthy flavours and it’s away from the light, fruity drinks that were very popular for a long time.”

Forty Creek Copper Bold

Bill and his team answered the call for bigger, bolder flavours when he developed Copper Bold. “It’s an amped up version of Barrel Select that’s bolder and stands up better in cocktails,” he says. “We offer a very full range of different whiskies. We really like to experiment at this company, and we take ideas from virtually everywhere, whether it be from outside influences or internally within the company. Honey Spiced was our jump into the flavoured whisky category with just a little bit of sweetness that tones the whisky down and it’s kind of that bridge into the whisky world. Fox Heart is Canadian whisky with a small percentage of Caribbean rum added to it. Confederation Oak is a blend that goes through secondary aging in oak barrels and tends to be aged two to three years and is our higher end whisky. Predominantly we use American white oak barrels and a mixture of new barrels, once-used bourbon barrels and Canadian oak barrels which are the same species as American oak barrels, but the trees are grown in the Canadian climate which causes it to have a tighter grain and it gives a very different flavour compared to American oak.”

How does aging change the taste of Whisky?

Asked what aging whisky adds to the flavour, Bill answers: “There’s two components when you age whisky. The first is what you extract out of the barrels, so in a new barrel there’s lots of lignins and tannins. Lignins are what give you the vanilla aromas and tannins give you that taste like black tea on your tongue. Barrels contribute that way through extraction and when we get together as whisky geeks, there’s always this argument about which part is more important; the extract components of the barrel or the process that happens which is called oxidation. Oxidation is what changes the individual components of the spirits into new components. I believe that oxidation is the most important part of the aging process, and as I say, I’ve engaged in many late-night discussions with my peers over this and you’ll find completely different opinions on that subject.”

One of the newer Forty Creek brands is called The Forager. “It’s a really interesting product. We use Canadian foraged herbs which are wild herbs; things like spruce tips, Labrador tea, sweet fern and then we basically make a tea. We put the herbs in an infusion bag and let them sit in the whisky to extract the flavours out of the herbs. It’s a lighter tasting whisky that can be used with tonic and one of my favourite summer drinks is Forager and lemonade.”

Rye whisky can be mixed with just about anything

Speaking of mixes, Bill says rye is so versatile that it can be mixed with just about anything, however rye and ginger with a twist of lime is likely the most popular cocktail. “I like my whisky neat, without ice,” he adds.

Forty Creek also produces a number of cream products using Canadian whisky to enhance the flavour of the cream including the Original Cream Liqueur and a ‘Canadiana’ flavour called Nanaimo Bar Cream Liqueur.

Bill hints that Forty Creek will soon introduce a new flavour but is tight lipped for now. “We do a release every year of a special whisky. This year will be our 17^th release. This happens in September in conjunction with our Whisky Weekend which features an open house at the facility. Last year was our first in-person Whisky Weekend in three years due to COVID and we were pleasantly surprised by the huge turnout.”

Forty Creek Expansion

Bill excitedly talks about the upcoming international expansion which will see Forty Creek expand their brands to APAC regulated countries like Australia, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and others. “It’s happening this spring,” Bill says. “On International Whisky Day, I will hopefully be in one of the new international markets talking about Forty Creek whisky, however I much prefer to be right here doing what I love, experimenting with new whiskies.”

Forty Creek was acquired by the Campari Group in 2014: the world’s sixth largest spirit holding company. The company rebranded their labels in 2022 by adding Niagara Whisky to the labels to pay homage to their roots. “We are a Niagara-based company, and we are proud of that fact and wanted to point that out to the world. Niagara is recognized globally,” adds Bill. “When I travel internationally, if I tell people I’m from Niagara, it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, someone will stop and tell you a story about their trip to Niagara Falls and the Niagara Region!”

For more information visit fortycreekwhisky.com.

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by Laurie Wallace-Lynch