Crème brulée | Vanilla custard | Black currants | Rich, sweet & inviting

Maple sugar candy | Crème brulée | Light milk chocolate | Hint of raspberry | Very sweet | Unusually silky mouthfeel

Sweet flavors fade against an echo of light spice | Dark cherry | Maple syrup | Dessert in a glass

Bearface Triple Oak Canadian Whisky is blended by master blender Andres Faustinelli, who oversees the curation process. Bearface undergoes a complicated aging process that lasts a total of at least 7 years. The whiskey spends its first 3-4 years in ex-bourbon American oak barrels (second and third use barrels), then spends another 3-4 years in French oak Bordeaux style red wine casks (predominantly ex-cabernet sauvignon, ex-merlot, and ex-cabernet franc barrels) and air dried virgin Hungarian oak casks. The ex-wine and Hungarian oak aging takes place in shipping containers in the Canadian wilderness, a process the company refers to as “Elementally Aged.” The term “Elementally Aged” is trademarked by the company, and according to them is “our unique process where hand-selected oak casks are matured in repurposed shipping containers and exposed to the elements in the Canadian wilderness.”  

Bearface is surprising in a number of ways. While Canadian whiskey is generally known to often be lower cost than its United States counterparts, the fact that the whiskey has seen three different cask types over 7 years makes its $35 price point feel head-scratchingly low. At 85 proof it’s surprisingly full-flavored, but even more surprising is how sweet it is. Most likely attributed largely to its 100% corn mashbill, the whiskey is more reminiscent of a sweet and heavily finished rum finished whiskey, such as Angel’s Envy Rye, than a red wine finished whiskey which tends to lean more towards the dry side. The sweetness is also surprising considering the whiskey’s marketing - aged in the elements of the Canadian wilderness and then bottled in faux bear-scratched glass bottles - two factors that would not have made me think the whiskey’s taste would lean so heavily towards the sweeter side.

Surprises aside, Bearface Triple Oak Canadian Whisky offers quite a bit of value for what’s in the bottle. It’s layered in sweet flavors, and I think anyone who likes sweeter dessert style whiskeys will really enjoy it.