Gooderham & Worts , the pioneering Canadian whisky maker, traces its beginnings to what is now Toronto in 1837, when William Gooderham (1790–1881), a Norfolk-born miller, built a small distillery to dispose of waste wheat and barley. In 1845, his nephew, James Gooderham Worts (1818–1882), installed copper pot stills to supplant the existing wooden one and added rye to the recipe to satisfy consumer demand for more flavor. See still, three-chamber. In 1859, the company invested $200,000 in a new five-story stone distillery. By the 1860s, the Montreal Gazette reported it was the largest distillery in the world, producing 11.4 million liters (3 million US gallons) of whisky annually, making it the largest taxpayer in British North America. Rising prohibition sentiments in the family’s Protestant faith dampened their enthusiasm, and their distillery languished. Entrepreneur Harry Hatch purchased it in 1923, selling the whisky to rumrunners. Commercial success enabled him, in 1926, to purchase Hiram Walker’s distillery in Windsor, and he began moving production there. By 1957, whisky making stopped at Gooderham & Worts, and the distillery switched to making antifreeze. Today the converted distillery complex is a housing, shopping, and entertainment district, although the brand has recently been revived by Pernod-Ricard for a four-grain whisky made at the company’s Corby distillery in Windsor, Ontario.
See also Hiram Walker and Sons; and whisky, Canadian.
De Kergommeaux, Davin. Canadian Whisky, Second Edition: The New Portable Expert. Vancouver: Appetite by Random House, 2017.
By: Davin de Kergommeaux
