Canadian Club

Canadian Club is one of the leading brands of Canadian whisky, launched in 1882 by Hiram Walker (1816–1899), a Massachusetts-born whisky merchant. As Canada’s oldest surviving whisky brand, it is wreathed in mythology. Walker introduced Club whisky as a seven-year-old blend of corn and rye spirits, intending to make a whisky so flavorful it would recover market share lost when US tariffs raised the price of imported whisky. Initial sales were small compared to less expensive American and Canadian whiskies. Walker added the word “Canadian” to the Club label in 1888, and within a year sales had quadrupled over the 1886 volume (though still only a meager 3,156 cases). Walker promoted Canadian Club aggressively, resulting in sales to 155 countries, most of which still sell it today. In the United States, it became a Prohibition staple given the distillery’s size and proximity to the border. See Prohibition and temperance in America. Now called “Premium” in Canada, it appeared frequently on American television, reminding audiences of its popularity during the Roaring Twenties and the 1960s. In 2014 a robust but value-priced version of Canadian Club appeared to supplant the standard blend and the other, longer-aged bottlings; it was named 100% Rye, to reflect how it was made. Canadian Club whisky distilled in the 1950s and bottled in 2014 for exclusive release in Australia is the oldest known Canadian whisky ever bottled for commercial sale. In 2005 ownership of the Windsor, Ontario, distillery, one of the largest in North America, passed to the French drinks giant Pernod-Ricard, while Beam Suntory took ownership of the Canadian Club brand. The distillery continues to produce Canadian Club whiskies under contract to Beam Suntory.

See also Hiram Walker and Sons; Pernod-Ricard; Suntory; and whisky, Canadian.

De Kergommeaux, Davin. Canadian Whisky, Second Edition: The New Portable Expert. Vancouver: Appetite by Random House, 2017.

By: Davin de Kergommeaux