Cape Breton’s very own ‘scotch’

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This article was published 04/05/2002 (8543 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GLENVILLE, N.S. — A modern distillery tucked away in this tiny community amid the leafy Cape Breton Highlands is producing an exotic amber-gold whisky that its creators think of as scotch.

Trouble is, they’re not allowed to label it as such.

In the sense that the only true champagne comes from France’s Champagne region, so real scotch whisky is distilled only in Scotland.

Thus the local product, although it follows the ancient Scottish methods, is marketed as Glen Breton Rare Canadian Single Malt Whisky, the only single malt produced in North America.

The distillery, a major component of the 120-hectare Glenora Inn and Distillery development begun in 1990, can’t keep up with demand. This despite prices that range from $74.98 for a 750-ml bottle in Nova Scotia to as much as $99 in Ontario, where several posh Toronto hotels complain they can’t get enough.

Chris Layton, spokesman for the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, says the board sold 1,000 bottles through its classy Vintages stores during last Christmas season and hopes to stock it more generally following release of a new batch this summer.

The product is also marketed in limited quantities in the United States, Bermuda and Mexico, with orders now arriving from Switzerland, Ireland, France and elsewhere.

“We never really anticipated going into mass production,” says master distiller Daniel MacLean, an engaging Cape Breton native who came to his job somewhat by chance.

“As a micro-distillery we’re going to keep it at around 2,000 dozen-bottle cases a year,” he says.

In the language of connoisseurs, who generally welcome Glen Breton into the high-end class of single malts, it is “assertive yet gentle in taste,” faintly sweet and “displays lots of flavour development.”

But whisky is a chancy business, and the Glenora operation has gone under twice, the original owners bankrupt even before it opened.

It isn’t like opening a coffee shop, MacLean explains, where you start earning with your first sale. “Whisky of this quality is stored for eight to 10 years or more before you start getting a return.”

In the beginning, they didn’t even consider Nova Scotia a principal market, says MacLean. “We’re known as rum drinkers and beer drinkers, but we sold 400 cases in the province last year and they’re crying for more.”

Now the distillery is supported by a gradually developed sprawling complex that includes a modern, nine-room inn with cosy restaurant and adjoining pub, six hillside chalets in the Swiss style and convention facilities.

The setting, just off the famed Cabot Trail, is midway between the villages of Inverness, where a former railway station now houses a mining museum, and Mabou, the Celtic fiddling and dancing heart of Cape Breton.

Set in a highlands area a few kilometres from the sea and excellent beaches, the surroundings, which abound with ancient Scottish heritage implanted by immigrants arriving in the 1820s, also offers fishing, skiing, horseback riding and scenic drives.

Aside from overnight guests, the inn attracts many day visitors who take the modestly priced distillery tour, stop for a meal, taste the whisky to the accompaniment of local musicians or simply stroll around the charming grounds.

Glen Breton is made from already-malted barley imported from Scotland and aged in oak barrels formerly used at the Jack Daniels bourbon distillery in Tennessee, slowly imparting flavour and colour.

“Most important of all, the water has to be perfect,” says MacLean, 35, who came to the distillery with no previous experience but was a keen student of the first Scottish master distiller who came over to set up Glenora.

–Canadian Press