Pike Creek Canadian Whisky Aged 21 Years Finished in European Casks

Pike Creek Canadian Whisky Aged 21 Years Finished in European Casks

This review (the 50th for Nice Sipper!) will be on a bottle that I bought on a whim a while back and have been sitting on for a while now – Pike Creek Canadian Whisky Aged 21 Years Finished in European Oak Casks.  Since that’s a mouthful of a label name, I’ll just refer to this as the Pike Creek 21, which seems more sensible than the PCCWA21YFEOC which looks like a password Google Chrome would autocreate for you (note to reader: this is not my password).  As I stated before, I typically don’t buy new bottles on a whim as I tend to do some research prior to see what people are saying and to see what’s a fair price.  That said, this was a height-of-COVID purchase and the bottle looked pretty cool and getting a 21 year old whisky for $80 seemed like it was worth taking a flier on.  

Pike Creek is an Ontario-based brand (I’m going out on a limb and stating that they are a brand and not a distiller, I’ll get more into the rabbit hole I had to go down in my web searches for this bottle, but I digress…) whose marketing really focuses on the maturation process in the Canadian elements which create a unique whisky.  According to the website they utilize a non-climate controlled warehouse, without electricity that gives the whisky full exposure to the “erratic” northern climate with “dramatic” seasonal swings in the temperature  – fluctuating from sub-zero winters to hot searing summers.  But that’s all we get from a process perspective from the website….nothing about the distilling process (hence why I think they’re a brand and not a distiller) and nothing about the mash bill, etc.  Everything’s just about the maturation.  But that’s OK.

ABV: 45%

How it smells….sweet, dry, copper, maple syrup

How it tastes….very light and honey-sweet at the start followed by mead wine and ending in some light peppery spice.  The finish is a little drying with some oak, but not over-oaked, and some baking spices.

Price..$80

Rating….🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃

Final thoughts…..This was actually really good.   My wife proclaimed it the best of the 50 I have rated thus far.    According to the internet, this is a corn whisky but I can’t confirm that.  This is one of the problems with buying limited bottles and then sitting on them for a while, it’s more difficult to get information about, especially when the company’s website seems to only put information on the latest bottling!  But according to Distiller this was part of the 2018 Northern Borders Rare Collection and is a blend of double distilled corn whisky.  The whisky was then aged for 21 years in ex-Bourbon barrels (50% of blend), French Oak barrels (25% of blend) and Hungarian Oak barrels (25% of blend).  My particular bottle was Number 3197 of 4020 bottles.  So limited and rare enough but not ultra-rare.  

You get some nice flavors from the French and Hungarian Oaks.  Now, I’m not going to sit here and give off the impression that my palate is so refined that I can pick up the nuisance differences between various European Oak subcategories, but as I mentioned in my Maker’s 46  Review I think you can notice some differences between the European Oak and American Oak influences, the former being more silky and savory spices and the latter more of the vanilla, caramel and coconut flavors that we love in our Bourbons.  Given that this aged for 21 years, cask influence is a major part of the flavor profile.  

This was a nice little sip and now that it is open, I’m going to enjoy it more frequently.  A a 5x 🥃 rating seems warranted as it was well aged, tasted unique, and didn’t break the bank at $80.  The problem will be that there probably aren’t many bottles of this left on the shelf.  BUT if this is how they can develop a 21 year old, I’m feeling pretty good about trying other releases from Pike Creek.  My ONE gripe about Pike Creek is that they don’t seem to compile their past releases on their website….to get information on this bottle I first went to Pike Creek’s site and didn’t find much there.  I then went to Hotaling & Co’s website as the bottle stated that they imported it…they didn’t have anything but an errant Google Search provided me a link to another Pike Creek release on Hotaling’s site which then directed me to Corby Brand’s website which in turn opened the door to me finding the Northern Border Collection website.  I have NO problem with independent bottlers and sourced whiskey (just check out my reviews on SMWS, Barrell Craft Spirits and High West) but come on people, make it easy for the consumer to learn more about what you’re putting out in the market!