Paradigm Spirits 19yo Canadian Whisky

The focus on the drinker’s perspective is a core principle that is evident in everything we do at Dramface. It is reflected in our long winded prose, the whiskies we choose to review, or omit, and even our scoring system, which is less industry-serving and specifically designed for enthusiasts.

So it’s no surprise we take little notice of awards that are so clearly positioned to serve the industry. Pay your dues and send them your bottles and you’re pretty much guaranteed to take home some hardware. Nevermind, it’s irrelevant for us. If we want to hear what the drinkers have to say about whisky, we can turn to the OSWAs, for scotch at least. Or better yet, join a club and ask around or taste and judge for yourself.

The Canadian Whisky Awards are one of said pay-to-play experiences, where producers pay a fee and provide at least a 700ml bottle (if 500ml format they require two). Oh, and the submission guidelines state that you provide an estimate of your sales forecast for said entrants. The long list of gold, silver, and bronze medal winners makes one wonder if any entrant goes home empty handed. I count approximately 160 medal winners out of “nearly 200 competing whiskies.” If there are any entrants that did not win a medal, their numbers are very small, and they can’t be named for obvious reasons.

Why am I writing about this then, and giving it airtime on our beloved Dramface, soiling our pure, sweet, innocent whisky-loving hearts with this industry-adjacent marketing poison wrapped up in a butter tart? Well, this year, for 2024, a rather interesting whisky won the Whisky of the Year award, and it piqued my interest.

I have been aware of Paradigm Spirits for a little while now, as the distillery in London (that’s London, Ontario, not London, London) built in an old Corn Flakes factory. The distillery, which also does vodka, gin, and canned cocktails, opened its doors in 2020. While it gets up to speed on the whisky front they are bottling some sourced whisky, the first release was a 19 year old cask strength Canadian corn whisky. This 2022 iteration appears to be from the same lot of 19 year old grain whisky, but this time Paradigm tried their hand in blending, with oloroso sherry added to the mix. 

That’s right, interest piqued. Paradigm have taken a well aged corn whisky and made a cocktail by dumping some sherry in. And then it won a whisky award. 

Many whisky intelligentsia dislike the legacy Canadian blending rules which allow small amounts of non-whisky spirits or wine to be added during blending (the infamous 1/11 or 9.09% rule) but I think it’s an important part of Canadian whisky heritage, although in my opinion it should be allowed with mandated disclosure on the label. In this instance Paradigm Spirits distillers and blenders inform us of their mischief on the back label with the context “we take the ‘blender’ part of our name seriously.” This being their heritage collection, it seems fitting to take advantage of this heritage.

Unlike with Lot 40 Port Casks where I was left to wonder whether “Dr. Don” had in fact made a rye-port cocktail, here I know I’ll be drinking a corn-sherry cocktail and it helps to set expectations and make the experience better overall.